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V 



LETTERS FROM A 
LIVING DEAD MAN 



BY ELS A BARKER 



THE SON OF MARY BETHEL 

THE FROZEN GRAIL 

THE BOOK OF LOVE 

THE SONG OF SAVITRI 

STORIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

FOR CHILDREN 
THE SCAB 
LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 



LETTERS 

FROM A 

LIVING DEAD MAN 



WRITTEN DOWN 

BY 

ELSA BARKER 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 




NEW YORK 

MITCHELL KENNERLEY 

1-914 



COPYRIGHT 1914 BY 
MITCHELL KENNERLEY 



APR 29 1914 



f 



'©CI.A371598 



CONTENTS 



letter page 

Introduction 5 

I. The Return 15 

II. Tell No Man 16 

III. Guarding the Door 18 

IV. A Cloud on the Mirror 19 
V. The Promise of Things Untold 21 

VI. The Wand of Will 22 

VII. A Light behind the Veil 24 

VIII. The Iron Grip of Matter 26 

IX. Where Souls go up and down . 28 

X. A Rendezvous in the Fourth Dimension 30 

XI. The Boy— Lionel 35 

XII. The Pattern World 40 

XIII. Forms Real and Unreal . 44 

XIV. A Folio of Paracelsus 47 
XV. A Roman Toga 51 

XVI. A Thing to be forgotten 56 

XVII. The Second Wife over there 64 

XVIII. Individual Hells 70 

XIX. A Little Home in Heaven 71 

XX. The Man who found God 78 

XXI. The Leisure of the Soul 84 

XXII. The Serpent of Eternity 90 

XXIII. A Brief for the Defendant 97 

XXIV. Forbidden Knowledge 101 



CONTENTS 

LETTER PAGE 

XXV. A Shadowless World 104 

XXVI. Circles in the Sand 109 

XXVII. The Magic Ring 115 

XXVIII. Except ye be as Little Children 121 

XXIX. An Unexpected Warning 126 

XXX. The Sylph and the Magician 131 

XXXI. A Problem in Celestial Mathematics 139 

XXXII. A Change of Focus 147 

XXXIII. Five Resolutions 153 

XXXIV. The Passing of Lionel 158 
XXXV. The Beautiful Being 16T 

XXXVI. The Hollow Sphere 173 

XXXVII. An Empty China Cup 179 

XXXVIII. Where Time is not . 187 

XXXIX. The Doctrine of Death 195 

XL. The Celestial Hdsrarchy 205 

XLI. The Darling of the Unseen 210 

XLII. A Victim of the Non-existent 319 

XLIII. A Cloud of Witnesses 228 

XLIV. The Kingdom Within 235 

XLV. The Game of Make-beld2VE 237 

XLVI. Heirs of Hermes 241 

XLVII. Only a Song 247 

XLVIII. Invisible Gifts at Yuletdde 250 

XLIX. The Greater Dreamland 258 

L. A Sermon and a Promise 265 

LI. The April of the World 273 

LII. A Happy Wtoower 276 

LIII. The Archives of the Soul 284 

LIV. A Formula for Mastership 288 



INTRODUCTION 

ONE night last year in Paris I was strongly 
impelled to take up a pencil and write, 
though what I was to write about I had no idea. 
Yielding to the impulse, my hand was seized as if 
from the outside, and a remarkable message of a 
personal nature came, followed by the signature 
"X." 

The purport of the message was clear, but the 
signature puzzled me. 

The following day I showed this writing to a 
friend, asking her if she had any idea who "X" 
was. 

"Why," she replied, "don't you know that that 
is what we always call Mr. -?" 

I did not know. 

Now, Mr. was six thousand miles from 

Paris, and, as we supposed, in the land of the liv- 
ing. But a day or two later a letter came to me 

from America, stating that Mr. had died in 

the western part of the United States, a few days 
before I received in Paris the automatic message 
signed "X." 

5 



6 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

So far as I know, I was the first person in 
Europe to be informed of his death, and I imme- 
diately called on my friend to tell her that "X" 
had passed out. She did not seem surprised, and 
told me that she had felt certain of it some days 
before, when I had shown her the "X" letter, 
though she had not said so at the time. 

Naturally I was impressed by this extraor- 
dinary incident. 

"X" was not a spiritualist. I am not myself, 
and never have been, a spiritualist, and, so far as 
I can remember, only two other supposedly dis- 
embodied entities had ever before written auto- 
matically through my hand. This had happened 
when I was in the presence of a mediumistic per- 
son; but the messages were brief, and I had not 
attached any great importance to the phenomena. 

In childhood I had several times put my hand 
upon a planchette with the hand of another per- 
son, and the planchette had written the usual 
trivialities. On one occasion, some months before 
the first "X" letter, I had put my hand upon a 
planchette with the hand of a non-professional 
medium, and the prophecy of a fire in my house 
during a certain month in the following year was 
written, supposedly by a dead friend, which 
prophecy was literally verified, though the fire 



INTRODUCTION 7 

was not caused by my hand, nor was it in my own 
apartment. 

A few times, years before, I had been persuaded 
by friends to go with them to professional seances, 
and had seen so-called materialisations. I had 
also seen independently a few appearances which 
I could not account for on any other hypothesis 
than that of apparitions of the dead. 

But to the whole subject of communication be- 
tween the two worlds I felt an unusual degree of 
indifference. Spiritualism had always left me 
quite cold, and I had not even read the ordinary 
standard works on the subject. 

Nevertheless, I had for a number of years al- 
most daily seen "hypnagogic visions," often of a 
startlingly prophetic character; and the explana- 
tion of them later given by "X" may be the true 
explanation. 

Soon after my receipt of the letter from Amer- 
ica stating that Mr. was dead, I was sitting 

in the evening with the friend who had told me 
who "X" was, and she asked me if I would not let 
him write again — if he could. 

I consented, more to please my friend than from 
any personal interest, and the message beginning, 
"I am here, make no mistake," came through my 
hand. It came with breaks and pauses between 



8 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

the sentences, with large and badly formed letters, 
but quite automatically, as in the first instance. 
The force used on this occasion was such that my 
right hand and arm were lame the following day. 

Several letters signed "X" were automatically 
written during the next few weeks; but, instead 
of becoming enthusiastic, I developed a strong dis- 
inclination for this manner of writing, and was 
only persuaded to continue it through the argu- 
ments of my friend that if "X" really wished to 
communicate with the world, I was highly privi- 
leged in being able to help him. 

"X" was not an ordinary person. He was a 
well-known lawyer nearly seventy years of age, a 
profound student of philosophy, a writer of 
books, a man whose pure ideals and enthusiasms 
were an inspiration to everyone who knew him. 
His home was far from mine, and I had seen 
him only at long intervals. So far as I remem- 
ber, we had never discussed the question of post- 
mortem consciousness. 

Gradually, as I conquered my strong preju- 
dice against automatic writing, I became inter- 
ested in the things which "X" told me about the 
life beyond the grave. I had read practically 
nothing on the subject, not even the popular Let- 
ters from Julia, so I had no preconceived ideas. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

The messages continued to come. After a 
while there was no more lameness of the hand 
and arm, and the form of the writing be- 
came less irregular, though it was never very 
legible. 

For a time the letters were written in the pres- 
ence of my friend; then "X" began to come al- 
ways when I was alone. He wrote either in Paris 
or in London, as I went back and forth between 
those two cities. Sometimes he would come sev- 
eral times a week; again, nearly a month would 
elapse without my feeling his presence. I never 
called him, nor did I think much about him be- 
tween his visits. During most of the time my 
pen and my thoughts were occupied with other 
matters. 

Only in one instance before the writing began 
had I any idea as to what the letter would con- 
tain. One night as I took up the pencil I knew 
what "X" was going to write about; but, though 
I remember the incident, I have forgotten to 
which message it referred. 

While writing these letters I was generally in 
a state of semi-consciousness, so that, until I read 
the message over afterwards, I had only a vague 
idea of what it contained. In a few instances I 
was so near unconsciousness that as I laid down 



I'O LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

the pencil I had not the remotest idea of what 
I had written; but this did not often happen. 

When it was first suggested that these letters 
should be published with an introduction by me, I 
did not take very enthusiastically to the idea. 
Being the author of several books, more or less 
well known, I had my little vanity as to the sta- 
bility of my literary reputation. I did not wish 
to be known as an eccentric, a "freak." But I 
consented to write an introduction stating that 
the letters were automatically written in my pres- 
ence, which would have been the truth, though not 
all the truth. This satisfied my friend; but as 
time went on, it did not satisfy me. It seemed not 
quite sincere. 

I argued the matter out with myself. If, I 
said, I publish these letters without a personal 
introduction, they will be taken for a work of 
fiction, of imagination, and the remarkable state- 
ments they contain will thus lose all their force 
as convincing arguments for the truth of a here- 
after. If I write an introduction stating that they 
came by supposedly automatic writing in my pres- 
ence, the question will naturally arise as to whose 
hand they came through, and I shall be forced 
to evasion. But if I frankly acknowledge that 
they came through my own hand, and state the 



INTRODUCTION II 

facts exactly as they are only two hypotheses will 
be open: first, that they are genuine communica- 
tions from the disembodied entity; second, that 
they are lucubrations of my own subconscious 
mind. But this latter hypothesis does not explain 
the first letter signed "X," which came before I 
knew that my friend was dead; does not explain 
it unless it be assumed that the subconscious mind 
of each person knows everything. In which case, 
why should my subconscious mind set out upon a 
long and laborious deception of me, on a premise 
which had not been suggested to it by my own 
objective mind, or that of any other person? 

That anyone would accuse me of deliberate 
deceit and romancing in so serious a matter did 
not then and does not now seem likely, my fancy 
having other and legitimate outlets in poetry and 
fiction. 

The letters were probably two-thirds written 
before this question was finally settled; and I de- 
cided that if I published the letters at all, I should 
publish them with a frank introduction, stating 
the exact circumstances of their reception by me. 

The actual writing covered a period of more 
than eleven months. Then came the question of 
editing. What should I leave out? What should 
I include? I determined to leave out nothing 



12 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

except personal references to "X's" private af- 
fairs, to mine, and to those of his friends. I 
have not added anything. Occasionally, when 
"XV literary style was clumsy, I have recon- 
structed a sentence or cut out a repetition; but I 
have taken far less liberty than I used, as an edi- 
tor, to take with ordinary manuscripts submitted 
to me for correction. 

Sometimes "X" is very colloquial, sometimes 
he uses legal phraseology, or American slang. 
Often he jumps from one subject to another, as 
one does in friendly correspondence, going back 
to his original subject without a connecting 
phrase. 

He has made a few statements relative to the 
future life which are directly contrary to the 
opinions which I have always held. These state- 
ments remain as they were written. Many of his 
philosophical propositions were quite new to me. 
Sometimes I did not see their profundity until 
months afterwards. 

I have no apology to offer for the publication 
of these letters. They are probably an inter- 
esting document, whatever their source may be, 
and I give them to the world with no more fear 
than when I gave my hand to "X" in the writing 
of them. 



INTRODUCTION 1 3 

If anyone asks the question, What do I myself 
think as to whether these letters are genuine com- 
munications from the invisible world, I should an- 
swer that I believe they are. In the personal and 
suppressed portions reference was often made to 
past events and to possessions of which I had 
no knowledge, and these references were verified. 
This leaves untouched the favourite telepathic 
theory of the psychologists. But if these letters 
were telepathed to me, by whom were they tele- 
pathed? Not by my friend who was present at 
the writing of many of them, for their contents 
were as much a surprise to her as to me. 

I wish, however, to state that I make no scien- 
tific claims about this book, for science demands 
tests and proofs. Save for the first letter signed 

"X" before I knew that Mr. was dead, or 

knew who "X" was, the book was not written 
under "test conditions," as the psychologists un- 
derstand the term. As evidence of a soul's sur- 
vival after bodily death, it must be accepted or 
rejected by each individual according to his or 
her temperament, experience, and inner conviction 
as to the truth of its contents. 

In the absence of "X" and without some other 
entity on the invisible side of Nature in whom 
I had a like degree of confidence, I could not pro- 



14 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

duce another document of this kind. Against in- 
discriminate mediumship I have still a strong and 
ineradicable prejudice, for I recognise its dangers 
both of obsession and deception. But for my 
faith in "X" and the faith of my Paris friend in 
me, this book could never have been. Doubt of 
the invisible author or of the visible medium 
would probably have paralysed both, for the pur- 
poses of this writing. 

The effect of these letters on me personally 
has been to remove entirely any fear of death 
which I may ever have had, to strengthen my be- 
lief in immortality, to make the life beyond the 
grave as real and vital as the life here in the sun- 
shine. If they can give even to one other person 
the sense of exultant immortality which they have 
given to me, I shall feel repaid for my labour. 

To those who may feel inclined to blame me 
for publishing such a book I can only say that 
I have always tried to give my best to the world, 
and perhaps these letters are one of the best 
things that I have to give. 

ELSA BARKER. 

London, 1913. 



LETTERS FROM A LIVING 
DEAD MAN 

LETTER I 

THE RETURN 

1AM here, make no mistake. 
It was I who spoke before, and I now speak 
again. 

I have had a wonderful experience. Much 
that I had forgotten I can now remember. What 
has happened was for the best; it was inevitable. 

I can see you, though not very distinctly. 

I found almost no darkness. The light here 
is wonderful, far more wonderful than the sun- 
light of the South. 

No, I cannot yet see my way very well around 
Paris; everything is different It is probably by 
reason of your own vitality that I am able to see 
you at this moment. 



15 



LETTER II 

TELL NO MAN 

1AM opposite to you now in actual space; 
that is, I am directly in front of you, resting 
on something which is probably a couch or divan. 

It is easier to come to you after dark. 

I remembered on going out that you might be 
able to let me speak through your hand. 

I am already stronger. It is nothing to fear 
— this change of condition. 

I cannot tell you yet how long I was silent. It 
did not seem long. 

It was I who signed "X." The Teacher helped 
me to make the connexion. 

You had better tell no one for a while, except 

, that I have come, as I do not want any 

obstructions to my coming when and where I will. 
Lend me your hand sometimes; I will not mis- 
use it. 

I am going to stay out here until I am ready to 
come back with power. Watch for me, but not 
yet. 

16 



TELL NO MAN 1 7 

Things seem easier to me now than they have 
seemed for a long time. I carry less weight. I 
could have held on longer in the body, but it did 
not seem worth the effort. 

I have seen the Teacher. He is near. His 
attitude to me is very comforting. 

But I would like to go now. Good night. 



LETTER III 

GUARDING THE DOOR 

YOU need to take certain precautions to 
protect yourself against those who press 
round me. 

You have only to lay a spell upon yourself 
night and morning. Nothing can get through that 
wall — nothing which you forbid your soul to en- 
tertain. 

Do not let any of your energy be sucked out 
of you by these larvae of the astral world. No, 
they cannot annoy me, for I am now used to the 
idea of them. You have absolutely nothing to 
fear, if you protect yourself. 



18 



LETTER IV 

A CLOUD ON THE MIRROR 

{After a sentence had been half written, the 
writing suddenly stopped, and was continued 
later. ) 

WHEN you respond to my call, wipe clean 
your mind as a child wipes its slate when 
ready for a new maxim or example by its teacher. 
Your lightest personal thought or fancy may be 
as a cloud upon a mirror, blurring the reflection. 

You can receive letters by this means, provided 
your mind does not begin to work independently, 
to question in the midst of the writing. 

I was not stopped this time, as before, by beings 
gathering round; but by your own curiosity as 
to the end of an unusual sentence. You suddenly 
became positive instead of negative, as if the re- 
ceiving instrument in a telegraph office should be- 
gin to send a message of its own. 

I have learned here the reason for many psy- 
chic things which formerly puzzled me, and I am 

19 



20 BETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

determined if possible to protect you from the 
danger of cross-currents in this work. 

There was one night when I called and you 
would not let me in. Was that kind? 

But I am not reproaching you. I shall come 
again and again, until my work is done. 

I will come to you in a dream before long, and 
will show you many things. 



LETTER V 

THE PROMISE OF THINGS UNTOLD 

AFTER a time I will share with you certain 
knowledge that I have gained since coming 
out. I see the past now as through an open win- 
dow. I see the road by which I have come, and 
can map out the road by which I mean to go. 

Everything seems easy now. I could do twice 
as much work as I do — I feel so strong. 

As yet I have not settled down anywhere, but 
am moving about as the fancy takes me; that is 
what I always dreamed of doing while in the 
body, and never could make possible. 

Do not fear death; but stay on earth as long 
as you can. Notwithstanding the companionship 
I have here, I sometimes regret my failure in hold- 
ing on to the world. But regrets have less weight 
on this side — like our bodies. 

Everything is well with me. 

I will tell you things that have never been told. 



21 



LETTER VI 

THE WAND OF WILL 

NOT yet do you grasp the full mystery of 
will. It can make of you anything you 
choose, within the limit of your unit energy, for 
everything is either active or potential in the unit 
of force which is man. 

The difference between a painter and a mu- 
sician, or between a poet and a novelist, is not 
a difference of qualities in the entity itself; for 
each unit contains everything except quantity, and 
thus has the possibilities of development along 
any line chosen by its will. The choice may have 
been made ages ago. It takes a long time, often 
many lives, to evolve an art or a faculty for one 
particular kind of work in preference to all 
others. Concentration is the secret of power, 
here as elsewhere. 

As to the use of will-power in your present 
everyday problems, there are two ways of using 
the will. One may concentrate upon a definite 
plan, and bring it into effect or not according to 
the amount of force at one's disposal; or one 

22 



THE WAND OF WILL 23 

may will that the best and highest and wisest 
plan possible shall be demonstrated by the sub- 
conscious forces in the self and in other selves. 
The latter is a commanding of all environment 
for a special purpose, instead of commanding, 
or attempting to command, a fragment of it. 

In this communion between the outer and in- 
ner worlds, you in the outer world are apt to 
think that we in ours know everything. You ex- 
pect us to prophesy like fortune-tellers, and to 
keep you informed of what is passing on the other 
side of the globe. Sometimes we can; generally 
we cannot. 

After a while I may be able to enter your 
mind as a Master does, and to know all the an- 
tecedent thoughts and plans in it; but now I can- 
not always do so. 

For instance, one night I looked everywhere 
for — — and could not find him. Perhaps it is 
necessary for you to think strongly of us, to make 
the way easiest. 

I am learning all the time. The Teacher is 
very active in helping me. 

When I am absolutely certain of my hold upon 
your hand, I shall have much to say about the 
life out here. 



LETTER VII 

A LIGHT BEHIND THE VEIL 

MAKE an opening for me sometimes in the 
veil of dense matter that shuts you from 
my eyes. I see you often as a spot of vivid light, 
and that is probably when your soul is active with 
feeling or your mind keen with thought. 

I can read your thoughts occasionally, but not 
always. Often I try to draw near, and cannot 
find you. You could not always find me, perhaps, 
should you come out here. 

Sometimes I am all alone: sometimes I am 
with others. 

Strange, but I seem to myself to have quite a 
substantial body now, though at first my arms and 
legs seemed sprawling in all directions. 

As a rule, I do not walk about as formerly, nor 
do I fly exactly, for I have never had wings; but 
I manage to get over space with incredible rapid- 
ity. Sometimes, though, I walk. 

Now, I want you to do me a favour. You know 
what a difficult job I often had to keep things 

24 



A LIGHT BEHIND THE VEIL 2£ 

going, yet I kept them going. Don't you get dis- 
couraged about the material wherewithal for your 
work. Work right ahead, as if the supply were 
there, and it will be there. You can demonstrate 
it in one way or another. Do not feel weak or 
uncertain, for when you do you drag me back to 
earth by force of sympathy. It is as bad as griev- 
ing for the dead. 



LETTER VIII 

THE IRON GRIP OF MATTER 

TO a man dwelling in the "invisible" there 
comes a sudden memory of earth. 

"Oh !" he says. "The world is going on with- 
out me. What am I missing?" 

It seems almost an impertinence on the part 
of the world to go on without him. He becomes 
agitated. He is sure that he is behind the times, 
left out, left over. 

He looks about him, and sees only the tran- 
quil fields of the fourth dimension. Oh, for the 
iron grip of matter once more! To hold some- 
thing in taut hands! 

Perhaps the mood passes, but one day it re- 
turns with redoubled force. He must get out of 
the tenuous environment into the forcibly re- 
sistant world of dense matter. But how? 

Ah, he remembers! All action comes from 
memory. It would be a reckless experiment had 
he not done it before. 

He closes his eyes, reversing himself in the in- 
26 



THE IRON GRIP OF MATTER 27 

visible. He is drawn to human life, to human 
beings in the intense vibration of union. There 
is sympathy here — perhaps the sympathy of past 
experience with the souls of those whom he now 
contacts, perhaps only sympathy of mood or im- 
agination. Be that as it may, he lets go his hold 
upon freedom and triumphantly loses himself in 
the lives of human beings. 

After a time he awakes, to look with bewil- 
dered eyes upon green fields and the round, solid 
faces of men and women. Sometimes he weeps, 
and wishes himself back. If he becomes dis- 
couraged, he may return — only to begin the weary 
quest of matter all over again. 

If he is strong and stubborn, he remains and 
grows into a man. He may even persuade him- 
self that the former life in tenuous substance was 
only a dream, for in dream he returns to it, and 
the dream haunts him and spoils his enjoyment of 
matter. 

After years enough he grows weary of the ma- 
terial struggle : his energy is exhausted. He sinks 
back into the arms of the unseen, and men say 
again with bated breath that he is dead. 

But he is not dead. He has only returned 
whence he came. 



LETTER IX 

WHERE SOULS GO UP AND DOWN 

MY friend, there is nothing to fear in death. 
It is no harder than a trip to a foreign 
country — the first trip — to one who has grown 
oldish and settled in the habits of his own more or 
less narrow corner of the world. 

When a man comes out here, the strangers 
whom he meets seem no more strange than the 
foreign peoples seem to one who first goes among 
them. He does not always understand them; 
there, again, his experience is like a sojourn in a 
foreign country. Then, after a while, he begins 
to make friendly advances and to smile with the 
eyes. The question, "Where are you from?" 
meets with a similar response to that on earth. 
One is from California, another is from Boston, 
another is from London. This is when we meet 
on the highroads of travel; for there are lanes 
of travel over here, where the souls go up and 
down as on the earth. Such a road is generally 
the most direct line between two great centres; 

28 



WHERE SOULS GO UP AND DOWN 20, 

but it is never on the line of a railway. There 
would be too much noise. We can hear sounds 
made on the earth- There is a certain shock to 
the etheric ear which carries the vibration of 
sound to us. 

Sometimes one settles down for a long time 
in one place. I visited an old home in the State 
of Maine, where a man on this side of life had 
been stopping for I do not know how many years ; 
he told me that the children had grown to be 
men and women, and that a colt to which he be- 
came attached when he first came out had grown 
into a horse and had died of old age. 

There are sluggards and dull people here, as 
with you. There are also brilliant and magnetic 
people, whose very presence is rejuvenating. 

It seems almost absurd to say that we wear 
clothes, the same as you do ; but we do not seem 
to need so many. I have not seen any trunks; 
but then I have been here only a short time. 

Heat and cold do not matter much to me now, 
though I remember at first being rather uncom- 
fortable by reason of the cold. But that is past. 



LETTER X 

A RENDEZVOUS IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 

YOU can do so much for me by lending me 
your hand occasionally, that I wonder why 
you shrink from it. 

This philosophy will go on being taught in 
the world and all over the world. Only a few, 
perhaps, will reach the deeps of it in this life; 
but a seed sown to-day may bear fruit long hence. 
Somewhere I have read that grains of wheat 
which had been buried with mummies for two or 
three thousand years had sprouted when placed 
in good soil in our own day. It is so with a philo- 
sophic seed. 

It has been said that he is a fool who works 
for philosophy instead of making philosophy 
work for him ; but a man cannot give to the world 
even a little of a true philosophy without reaping 
sevenfold himself, and you know the Biblical quo- 
tation which ends, "and in the world to come eter- 
nal life." To get, one must give. That is the 
Law. 

30 



A RENDEZVOUS IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 3 1 

I can tell you many things about the life out 
here which may be of use to others when they 
make the great change. Almost everyone brings 
memory over with him. The men and women I 
have met and communed with have had more or 
less vivid recollection of their earth life — that 
is, most of them. 

I met one man who refused to speak of the 
earth, and was always talking about "going on." 
I reminded him that if he went on far enough 
he would come back to the place from which he 
started. 

You have been curious, perhaps, as to what 
we eat and drink, if anything. We certainly are 
nourished, and we seem to absorb much water. 
You also should drink plenty of water. It feeds 
the astral body. I do not think that a very dry 
body would ever have enough astral vitality to 
lend a hand to a soul on this plane of life, as you 
are doing now. There is much moisture in our 
bodies over here. Perhaps that is one reason 
why contact with a so-called spirit sometimes 
gives warm-blooded persons a sense of cold, and 
they shiver. 

It is something of an effort on my part also 
to write like this, but it seems to be worth while. 

I come to the place where I feel that you are. 



32 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

I can see you better than most others. Then I 
reverse; that is, instead of going in, as I used 
to do, I go out with great force and in your di- 
rection. I take possession of you by a strong 
propulsive effort. 

Sometimes the writing has stopped suddenly 
in the midst of a sentence. That was when I 
was not properly focussed. You may have no- 
ticed when reversing and shutting away the out- 
side world, that a sudden noise, or maybe a wan- 
dering thought, would bring you right out again. 
It is so here. 

Now, about this element in which we live. It 
undoubtedly has a place in space, for it is all 
around the earth. Yes, every tree visible has 
its invisible counterpart. When you, before 
sleep, come out consciously into this world, 1 you 
see things that exist, or have existed, in the ma- 
terial world also. You cannot see anything in 
this world which has not a physical counterpart 
in the other. There are, of course, thought- 
pictures, imaginary pictures; but to see imagina- 
tively is not to see on the astral plane — not by any 
means. The things you see before going to sleep 
have real existence, and by changing your rate 
of vibration you come out into this world — or 

1 This undoubtedly refers to my "hypnagogic" visions. — Ed. 



A RENDEZVOUS IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 33 

rather you go back into it, for you have to go in, 
in order to come out. 

Imagination has great power. If you make 
a picture in the mind, the vibrations of the body 
may adjust to it if the will is directed that way, 
as in thoughts of health or sickness. 

It might be well as an experiment, when you 
want to come out here, to choose a certain sym- 
bol and hold it before your eyes. I do not say 
that it would help to change the vibration, but 
it might. 

I wonder if you could see me if just before 
falling asleep you should come out here with 
that thought and that desire dominant in your 
mind? 

I am strong to-day, because I have been long 
with one who is stronger; and if you want to 
make the experiment of trying to find me this 
night, I may be able to help you better than at 
another time. 

There is so much to say, and I can seldom talk 
with you. If you were differently situated and 
quite free from other things, I could perhaps 
come often. I am learning much that I should 
like to give you. 

For instance, I think I can show you how to 



34 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

come out here at will, as the Masters do con- 
stantly. 

At first I took only your arm to write with, 
but now I get a better hold of the psychic or- 
ganisation. I saw that I was not working in the 
best way, that there was a waste somewhere, so 
I asked the Teacher for instruction in the mat- 
ter. By this new method you will not feel so 
tired afterwards, nor shall I. 

I am going now, and will try to meet you in 
a few minutes. If the experiment should fail, 
do not be discouraged; but try again some other 
time. You will know me all right, if you do 
see me. 



LETTER XI 

THE BOY — LIONEL 

YOU will be interested to know that there 
are people out here, as on the earth, who 
devote themselves to the welfare of others. 

There is even a large organisation of souls 
who call themselves a League. Their special 
work is to take hold of those who have just come 
out, helping them to find themselves and to adjust 
to the new conditions. There are both men and 
women in this League. They have done good 
service. They work on a little — I do not want 
to say higher plane than the Salvation Army, 
but rather a more intellectual plane. They help 
both children and adults. 

It is interesting about the children. I have 
not had time yet to observe all these things for 
myself; but one of the League workers tells me 
that it is easier for children to adjust themselves 
to the changed life than it is for grown persons. 
Very old people are inclined to sleep a good deal, 
while children come out with great energy, and 

35 



36 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

bring with them the same curiosity that they had 
in earth life. There are no violent changes. The 
little ones grow up, it is said, about as gradually 
and imperceptibly as they would have grown on 
earth. The tendency is to fulfil the normal 
rhythm, though there are instances where the soul 
goes back very soon, with little rest. That would 
be a soul with great curiosity and strong desires. 

There are horrors out here — far worse than 
the horrors on earth. The decay from vice and 
intemperance is much worse here than there. I 
have seen faces and forms that were really fright- 
ful, faces that seemed to be half-decayed and fall- 
ing in pieces. These are the hopeless cases, which 
even the League of workers I spoke about leave 
to their fate. It is uncertain what the fate of 
such people will be; whether they will reincar- 
nate or not in this cycle, I do not know. 

The children are so charming! One young boy 
is with me often; he calls me Father, and seems 
to enjoy my society. He would be, I should think, 
about thirteen years old, and he has been out here 
some time. He could not tell me just how long; 
but I will ask him if he remembers the year, the 
calendar year, in which he came out. 

It is not true that we cannot keep our thoughts 
to ourselves if we are careful to do so. We can 



THE BOY LIONEL 37 

guard our secrets, if we know how. That is done 
by suggestion, or laying a spell. It is, though, 
much easier here than on earth to read the minds 
of others. 

We seem to communicate with one another 
in about the same way that you do; but I find, 
as time goes by, that I converse more and more 
by powerful and projected thought than by the 
moving of the lips. At first I always opened my 
mouth when I had anything to say; it is easier 
now not to do so, though I sometimes do it still 
by force of habit. When a man has recently 
come out he does not understand another unless 
he really speaks; that is, I suppose, before he has 
learned that he also can talk without using much 
breath. 

But I was telling you about the boy. He is all 
interest in regard to certain things I have told 
him about the earth, — especially aeroplanes, 
which were not yet very practicable when he 
came out. He wants to go back and fly in an 
aeroplane. I tell him that he can fly here with- 
out one, but that does not seem to be the same 
thing to him. He wants to get his fingers on 
machinery. 

I advise him not to be in any hurry about going 
back. The curious thing about it is that he can 



38 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

remember other and former lives of his on earth. 
Many out here have no more memory of their 
former lives, before the last one, than they had 
while in the body. This is not a place where 
everyone knows everything — far from it. Most 
souls are nearly as blind as they were in life. 

The boy was an inventor in a prior incarnation, 
and he came out this time by an accident, he says. 
He should stay here a little longer, I think, to 
get a stronger rhythm for a return. That is only 
my idea. I am so interested in the boy that I 
should like to keep him, and perhaps that influ- 
ences my judgment somewhat. 

You see, we are still human. 

You asked me some questions, did you not? 
Will you speak them aloud? I can hear. 

Yes, I feel considerably younger than I have 
felt for a long time, and I am well. At first I 
felt about as I did in my illness, with times of 
depression and times of freedom from depres- 
sion; but now I am all right. My body does not 
give me much trouble. 

I believe that old people grow younger here 
until they reach their prime again, and that then 
they may hold that for a long time. 

You see, I have not become all-wise. I have 



THE BOY — LIONEL 39 

been able to pick up a good deal of knowledge 
which I had forgotten; but about all the details 
of this life I still have much to learn. 

Your curiosity will help me to study conditions 
and to make inquiries, which otherwise I might 
not have made for a long time, if ever. Most 
people do not seem to learn much out here, ex- 
cept that naturally they learn the best and easiest 
way of getting on, as in earth life. 

Yes, there are schools here where any who 
wish for instruction can receive it — if they are 
fit. But there are only a few great teachers. The 
average college professor is not a being of su- 
preme wisdom, whether here or there. 



LETTER XII 

THE PATTERN WORLD 

THERE is something I want to qualify in 
what I said the other day, that there is 
nothing out here which has not existed on the 
earth. Since then I have learned that that state- 
ment is not exactly true. There are strata here. 
This I have learned xecently. I still believe that 
in the lowest stratum next the earth all or nearly 
all that exists has existed on earth in dense mat- 
ter. Go a little farther up, a little farther away 
— how far I cannot say by actual measurement; 
but the other night in exploring I got into the 
world of patterns, the paradigms- — if that is the 
word — of things which are to be on earth. I saw 
forms of things which, so far as I know, have 
not existed on your planet — inventions, for ex- 
ample. I saw wings that man could adjust to 
himself. I saw also new forms of flying-ma- 
chines. I saw model cities, and towers with 
strange wing-like projections on them, of which 

40 



THE PATTERN WORLD 4 1 

I could not imagine the use. The progress of 
mechanical invention is evidently only begun. 

Another time I will go on, farther up in that 
world of pattern forms, and see if I can learn 
what lies beyond it. 

Bear this in mind: I merely tell you stories, 
as an earthly traveller would tell, of the things 
I see. Sometimes my interpretation of them may 
be wrong. 

When I was in the place which we will call 
the pattern world, I saw almost nobody there — 
only an occasional lone voyager like myself. I 
naturally infer from this that but few of those 
who leave the earth go up there at all. I think 
from what I have seen, and from conversations 
I have had with men and women souls, that most 
of them do not get very far from the earth, even 
out here. 

It is strange, but many persons seem to be in 
the regular orthodox heaven, singing in white 
robes, with crowns on their heads and with harps 
in their hands. There is a region which outsiders 
call "the heaven country." 

There is also, they tell me, a fiery hell, with 
at least the smell of brimstone ; but so far I have 
not been there. Some day when I feel strong I 



42 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

will look in, and if it is not too depressing I will 
go farther — if they will let me. 

For the present I am looking about here and 
there, and I have not studied carefully any place 
as yet. 

I took the boy, whose name by the way is 
Lionel, out with me yesterday. Perhaps we ought 
to say last night, for your day is our night when 
we are on your side of this great hollow sphere. 
You and the solid earth are in the centre of our 
sphere. 

I took the boy out with me for what you would 
call a walk. 

First we went to the old quarter of Paris, 
where I used to live in a former life; but Lionel 
could not see anything, and when I pointed out 
certain buildings to him he asked me quite sin- 
cerely if I were dreaming. I must have some 
faculty which is not generally developed among 
my fellow citizens in the astral country. So when 
the boy found that Paris was only a figment of 
my imagination — he used to live in Boston — I 
took him to see heaven. He remarked: 

"Why, this must be the place my grandmother 
used to tell me about. But where is God?" 

That I could not tell him ; but, on looking again, 
we saw that nearly everybody was gazing in one 



THE PATTERN WORLD 43 

direction. We also gazed with the others, and 
saw a great light, like a sun, only it was softer 
and less dazzling than the material sun. 

"That," I said to the boy, "is what they see 
who see God." 

And now I have something strange to tell you ; 
for, as we gazed at that light, slowly there took 
form between us and it the figure which we are 
accustomed to see represented as that of the 
Christ. He smiled at the people and stretched 
out His hands to them. 

Then the scene changed, and He had on His 
left arm a lamb; and then again He stood as if 
transfigured upon a mountain; then He spoke 
and taught them. We could hear His voice. And 
then He vanished from our sight. 



LETTER XIII 

FORMS REAL AND UNREAL 

WHEN I first came out here I was so inter- 
ested in what I saw that I did not ques- 
tion much as to the manner of the seeing. But 
lately — especially since writing the last letter or 
two — I have begun to notice a difference between 
objects that at a superficial glance seem to be of 
much the same substance. For example, I 
can sometimes see a difference between those 
things which have existed on earth unquestion- 
ably, such as the forms of men and women, 
and other things which, while visualised and seem- 
ingly palpable, may be, and probably are, but 
thought-creations. 

This idea came to me while looking on at the 
dramas of the heaven country, and it was forced 
upon me with greater power while making other 
and recent explorations in that which I have called 
the pattern world. 

Later I may be able to distinguish at a glance 
between these two classes of seeming objects. For 

44 



FORMS REAL AND UNREAL 45 

example, if I encounter here a being, or what 
seems a being, and if I am told that it is some 
famous character in fiction, such as Jean Valjean 
in Hugo's Les Miserables, I shall have reason to 
believe that I have seen a thought-form of suf- 
ficient vitality to stand alone, as a quasi-entity 
in this world of tenuous matter. So far I have 
not encountered any such characters. 

Of course, unless I were able to hold converse 
with a being, a form, or saw others do so, I could 
not positively state that it had an essential ex- 
istence. Hereafter I shall often put things to 
the test in this way. If I can talk to a seeming 
entity, and if it can answer me, I am justified in 
considering it as a reality. A character in fiction, 
or any other mental creation, however vivid as a 
picture, would have no soul, no unit of force, no 
real self. Whatever comes to me merely as a 
picture I shall try to submit to this test. 

If I see a peculiar form of tree or animal, and 
can touch and feel it, — for the senses here are 
quite as acute as those of earth, — I know that it 
exists in the subtle matter of this- plane. 

I believe that all the beings whom I have seen 
here are real ; but if I can find one that is not, — 
a being which I cannot feel when I touch it and 
which cannot respond to my questions,— -I shall 



46 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

have a datum for my hypothesis that thought- 
forms of beings, as well as things, may have suf- 
ficient cohesion to seem real. 

It is undoubtedly true that there is no spirit 
without substance, no substance without spirit, 
latent or expressed; but a painting of a man may 
seem at a distance to be a man. 

Can there exist deliberate thought-creations 
here, deliberate and purposive creations? I be- 
lieve so. Such a thought-form would probably 
have to be very intense in order to persist. 

It seems to me that I had better settle this 
question to my own satisfaction before talking 
any more about it. 



LETTER XIV 

A FOLIO OF PARACELSUS 

THE other day I asked my Teacher to show 
me the archives in which those who had 
lived out here had recorded their observations, 
if such existed. He said: 

"You were a great reader of books when you 
were on the earth. Come." 

We entered a vast building like a library, and 
I caught my breath in wonder. It was not the 
architecture of the building which struck me, but 
the quantities of books and records. There must 
have been millions of them. 

I asked the Teacher if all the books were here. 
He smiled and said: 

"Are there not enough? You can make your 
choice." 

I asked if the volumes were arranged by sub- 
jects. 

"There is an arrangement," he answered. 
"What do you want?" 

I said that I should like to see the books in 

47 



48 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

which were written the accounts of explorations 
which other men had made in this (to me) still 
slightly known country. 

He smiled again, and took from a shelf a 
thick volume. It was printed in large black type. 1 

"Who wrote this book?" I asked. 

"There is a signature," he replied. 

I looked at the end and saw the signature: it 
was that used by Paracelsus. 

"When did he write this?" 

"Soon after he came out. It was written be- 
tween his Paracelsus life and his next one on 
earth." 

The book which I had opened was a treatise on 
spirits, human, angelic, and elemental. It began 
with the definition of a human spirit as a spirit 
which had had the experience of life in human 
form; and it defined an elemental spirit as a 
spirit of more or less developed self-consciousness 
which had not yet had that experience. 

Then the author defined an angel as a spirit 
of a high order which had not had, and probably 
would not have in future, such experience in mat- 
ter. 

*I hope no one will expect me to answer the question why- 
should such a book appear to be printed in large black type. 
I have no more idea than has the reader. — Ed. 



A FOLIO OF PARACELSUS 49 

He went on to state that angelic spirits were 
divided into two sharply defined groups, the celes- 
tial and the infernal, the former being those an- 
gels who worked towards harmony with the laws 
of God, the latter being those angels who worked 
against that harmony. But he said that both 
these orders of angels were necessary, each to the 
other's existence; that if all were good the uni- 
verse would cease to be; that good itself would 
cease to be through the failure of its opposite — 
evil. 

He said that in the archives of the angelic re- 
gions there were cases on record where a good 
angel had become bad or a bad angel had become 
good, but that such cases were of rare occurrence. 

He then went on to warn his fellow souls who 
should be sojourning in that realm in which he 
then wrote, and in which I knew myself also to 
be, against holding communion with evil spirits. 
He declared that in the subtler forms of life there 
were more temptations than in the earth life ; that 
he himself had often been assailed by malignant 
angels who had urged him to join forces with 
them, and that their arguments were sometimes 
extremely plausible. 

He said that while living on earth he had often 
had conversations with spirits both good and bad; 



JO LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

but that while on earth he had never, so far as 
he knew, held converse with an angel of a malig- 
nant nature. 

He advised his readers that there was one 
way to determine whether a being of the subtler 
world was an angel or merely a human or an 
elemental spirit, and that was by the greater bril- 
liancy of the light which surrounded an angel. 
He said that both good and bad angels were ex- 
tremely brilliant; but that there was a difference 
between them, perceptible at the first glance at 
their faces; that the eyes of the celestial angels 
were aflame with love and intellect, while the eyes 
of the infernal angels were very unpleasant to en- 
counter. 

He said that it would be possible for an in- 
fernal angel to disguise himself to a mortal, so 
that he might be mistaken for an angel of light; 
but that it was practically impossible for an angel 
to disguise his real nature from those souls who 
were living in their subtle bodies. 

I will perhaps say more on this subject another 
night. I must rest now. 



LETTER XV 

A ROMAN TOGA 

ONE thing which makes this country so in- 
teresting to me is its lack of convention- 
ality. No two persons are dressed in the same 
way — or no, I do not mean that exactly, but many 
are so eccentrically dressed that their appearance 
gives variety to the whole. 

My own clothes are, as a rule, similar to those 
I wore on earth, though I have as an experiment, 
when dwelling in thought on one of my long-past 
lives, put on the garments of the period. 

It is easy to get the clothes one wants here. 
I do not know how I became possessed of the 
garments which I wore on coming out; but when 
I began to take notice of such things, I found my- 
self dressed about as usual. I am not yet sure 
whether I brought my clothes with me. 

There are many people here in costumes of 
the ancient days. I do not infer from this fact 
that they have been here all those ages. I think 
they wear such clothes because they like them. 

5i 



[52 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

As a rule, most persons stay near the place 
where they lived on earth; but I have been a wan- 
derer from the first. I go rapidly from one coun- 
try to another. One night (or day with you) I 
may take my rest in America; the next night I 
may rest in Paris. I have spent hours of repose 
on the divan in your sitting-room, and you did not 
know that I was there. I doubt, though, if I could 
stay for hours in your house when I was myself 
awake without your sensing my presence. 

Do not think, however, from what I have just 
said, that it is necessary for me to rest on the 
solid matter of your world. Not at all. We 
can rest on the tenuous substance of our own 
world. 

One day, when I had been here only a short 
time, I saw a woman dressed in a Greek costume, 
and asked her where she got her clothes. She 
replied that she had made them. I asked her 
how, and she said: 

"Why, first I made a pattern in my mind, and 
then the thing became a garment." 

"Did you take every stitch?" 

"Not as I should have done on earth." 

I looked closer and saw that the whole gar- 
ment seemed to be in one piece, and that it was 
caught on the shoulders by jewelled pins. I asked 



A ROMAN TOGA 53 

where she got the jewelled pins, and she said 
that a friend had given them to her. Then I 
asked where the friend had got them. She told 
me that she did not know, but that she would 
ask him. Soon after that she left me, and I have 
not seen her since, so the question is still un- 
answered. 

I began to experiment to see if I also could 
make things-. It was then that I con'ceived the 
idea of wearing a Roman toga, but for the life 
of me I could not remember what a Roman toga 
looked like. 

When next I met the Teacher I told him of 
my wish to wear a toga of my own making, and 
he carefully showed me how to create garments 
such as I desired: To fix the pattern and shape 
clearly in my mind, to visualise it, and then by 
power to desire to draw the subtle matter of 
the thought-world round the pattern, so as ac- 
tually to form the garment. 

"Then," I said, "the matter of the thought- 
world, as you call it, is not the same kind of mat- 
ter as that of my body, for instance?" 

"In the last analysis," he answered, "there is 
only one kind of matter in both worlds ; but there 
is a great difference in vibration and tenuity." 

Now the thought-substance of which our gar- 



54 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

ments are formed seems to be an extremely tenu- 
ous form of matter, while our bodies seem to be 
pretty solid. We do not feel at all like trans- 
parent angels sitting on damp clouds. Were it 
not for the quickness with which I get over space, 
I should think sometimes that my body was as 
solid as ever. 

I can often see you, and to me you seem tenu- 
ous. It is all, I suppose, the old question of ad- 
justing to environment. At first I could not do 
it, and had some trouble in learning to adjust the 
amount of energy necessary for each particular 
action. So little energy is required here to move 
myself about that at first when I started to go a 
short distance — say, a few yards — I would find 
myself a mile away. But I am now pretty well 
adjusted. 

I must be storing up energy here for a good 
hard life when I return to the earth again. The 
hardest work I do now is to come and write 
through your hand, but you offer less and less re- 
sistance as time goes on. In the beginning it took 
all my strength; now it takes only a comparatively 
small effort. Yet I could not do it long at a time 
without using your own vitality, and that I will 
not do. 

You may have noticed that you are no longer 



A ROMAN TOGA 55 

fatigued after the writing, though you used to 
be at first. 



But I was speaking of the lack of convention- 
ality out here. Souls hail each other when they 
want to, without much ceremony. I have seen a 
few old women who were afraid to talk to a 
stranger, but probably they had not been here 
long and the earth habits still clung to them. 

Do not think, however, that society here is too 
free and easy. It is not that, but men and women 
do not seem to be so afraid of each other as they 
were on earth. 



LETTER XVI 

A THING TO BE FORGOTTEN 

1WANT to say a word to those who are about 
to die. I want to beg them to forget their 
bodies as soon as possible after the change which 
they call death. 

Oh, the terrible curiosity to go back and look 
upon that thing which we once believed to be our- 
selves! The thought comes to us now and then 
so powerfully that it acts in a way against our 
will and draws us back to it. With some it is a 
morbid obsession, and many cannot get free from 
it while there remains a shred of flesh on the 
bones which they once leaned upon. 

Tell them to forget it altogether, to force the 
thought away, to go out into the other life free. 
Looking back upon the past is sometimes good, 
but not upon this relic of the past. 

It is so easy to look into the coffin, because the 
body which we wear now is itself a light in a dark 
place, and it can penetrate grosser matter. I have 
been back myself a few times, but am determined 

56 



A THING TO BE FORGOTTEN 57 

to go back no more. Yet some day the thought 
may come to me again with compelling insistence 
to see how it is getting on. 

I do not want to shock or pain you — only to 
warn you. It is sad to see the sight which inevita- 
bly meets one in the grave. That may be the 
reason why many souls who have not been here 
long are so melancholy. They return again and 
again to the place which they should not visit. 

You know that out here if we think intently of 
a place we are apt to find ourselves there. The 
body which we use is so light that it can follow 
thought almost without effort. Tell them not to 
do it. 

One day while walking down an avenue of trees 
— for we have trees here — I met a tall woman in 
a long black garment. She was weeping — for we 
have tears here also. I asked her why she wept, 
and she turned to me eyes of unutterable sadness. 

"I have been back to it," she said. 

My heart ached for her, because I knew how 
she felt. The shock of the first visit is repeated 
each time, as the thing one sees is less and less 
what we like to think of ourselves as being. 

Often I remember that tall woman in black, 
walking down the avenue of trees and weeping. 
It is partly curiosity that draws one back, partly 



58 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

magnetic attraction ; but it can do no good. It is 
better to forget it. 

I have sometimes longed, from sheer scientific 
interest, to ask my boy Lionel if he had been back 
to his body; but I have not asked him for fear of 
putting the idea into his mind. He has such a 
restless curiosity. Perhaps those who go out as 
children have less of that morbid instinct than we 
have. 

If we could only remember in life that the form 
which we call ourselves is not our real immortal 
self at all, we would not give it such an exag- 
gerated importance, though we would neverthe- 
less take needful care of it. 

As a rule, those who say that they have been 
long here do not seem old. I asked the Teacher 
why, and he said that after a time an old person 
forgets that he is old, that the tendency is to grow 
young in thought and therefore young in appear- 
ance, that the body tends to take the form which 
we hold of it in our minds, that the law of rhythm 
works here as elsewhere. 

Children grow up out here, and they may even 
go on to a sort of old age if that is the expecta- 
tion of the mind; but the tendency is to keep the 
prime, to go forward or back towards the best 



A THING TO BE FORGOTTEN 59 

period, and then to hold that until the irresistible 
attraction of the earth asserts itself again. 

Most of the men and women here do not know 
that they have lived many times in flesh. They 
remember their latest life more or less vividly, but 
all before that seems like a dream. One should 
always keep the memory of the past as clear as 
possible. It helps one to construct the future. 

Those people who think of their departed 
friends as being all-wise, how disappointed they 
would be if they could know that the life on this 
side is only an extension of the life on earth I If 
the thoughts and desires there have been only for 
material pleasures, the thoughts and desires here 
are likely to be the same. I have met veritable 
saints since coming out; but they have been men 
and women who held in earth life the saintly ideal, 
and who now are free to live it. 

Life can oe so free here! There is none of 
that machinery of living which makes people on 
earth such slaves. In our world a man is held 
only by his thoughts. If they are free, he is free. 

Few, though, are of my philosophic spirit. 
There are more saints here than philosophers, as 
the highest ideal of most persons, when intensely 
active, has been towards the religious rather than 
the philosophic life. 



60 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

I think the happiest people I have met on this 
side have been the painters. Our matter is so 
light and subtle, and so easily handled, that it 
falls readily into the forms of the imagination. 
There are beautiful pictures here. Some of our 
artists try to impress their pictures upon the men- 
tal eyes of the artists of earth, and they often suc- 
ceed in doing so. 

There is joy in the heart of one of our real ar- 
tists when a fellow craftsman on your side catches 
an idea from him and puts it into execution. He 
may not always be able to see clearly how well 
the second man works out the idea, for it requires 
a special gift or a special training to see from one 
form of matter into the other; but the inspiring 
spirit catches the thought in the inspired one's 
mind, and knows that a conception of his own is 
being executed upon the earth. 

With poets it is the same. There are lovely 
lyrics composed out here and impressed upon the 
receptive minds of earthly poets. A poet told 
me that it was easier to do that with a short lyric 
than with an epic or a drama, where a long-con- 
tinued effort was necessary. 

It is much the same with musicians. When- 
ever you go to a concert where beautiful music 
is being played, there is probably all round you a 



A THING TO BE FORGOTTEN 6 1 

crowd of music-loving spirits, drinking in the har- 
monies. Music on earth is much enjoyed on this 
side. It can be heard. But no sensitive spirit 
likes to go near a place where bad strumming is 
going on. We prefer the music of stringed in- 
struments. Of all earthly things, sound reaches 
most directly into this plane of life. Tell that to 
the musicians. 

If they could only hear our music I I did 
not understand music on earth, but now my ears 
are becoming adjusted. It seems sometimes as 
if you must hear our music over there, as we hear 
yours. 

You may have wondered how I spend my time 
and where I go. There is a lovely spot in the 
country which I never tire of visiting. It is on 
the side of a mountain, not far from my own 
city. There is a little road winding round a hill, 
and just above the road is a hut, a roofed enclo- 
sure with the lower side open. Sometimes I stay 
there for hours and listen to the rippling of the 
brook which runs beside the road. The tall slen- 
der trees have become like brothers to me. At 
first I cannot see the material trees very clearly; 
but I go into the little hut which is made of fresh 
clean boards with a sweet smell, and I lie down 



62 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

cm the shelf or bunk along the wall ; then I close 
my eyes and by an effort — or no, it is not what I 
would call an effort, but by a sort of drifting — I 
can see the beautiful place. But you must know 
that this is in the night time there, and I see it by 
the light of myself. That is why we travel in the 
dark part of the twenty-four hours, for in the 
bright sunlight we cannot see at all. Our light is 
put out by the cruder light of the sun. 

One night I took the boy Lionel there with me, 
leaving him in the hut while I went a little dis- 
tance away. Looking back, I saw the whole hut 
illuminated by a lovely radiance — the radiance of 
Lionel himself. The little building, which has a 
peaked roof, looked like a pearl lighted from 
within. It was a beautiful experience. 

I then went to Lionel and told him to go in his 
turn a little distance away, while I took his place 
in the hut. I was curious to know if he would see 
the same phenomenon when I lay there, if I could 
shed such a light through dense matter — the 
boards of the building. When I called him to 
me afterwards and asked if he had seen anything 
strange, he said: 

"What a wonderful man you are, Father! 
How did you make that hut seem to be on fire?" 



A THING TO BE FORGOTTEN 63 

Then I knew that he had seen the same thing 
I had seen. 

But I am tired now and can write no more. 
Good night, and may you have pleasant dreams. 



LETTER XVII 

THE SECOND WIFE OVER THERE 

1AM often called upon here to decide mat- 
ters for others. Many people call me simply 
"the Judge"; but we bear, as a rule, the name 
that we last bore on earth. 

Men and women come to me to settle all sorts 
of questions for them, questions of ethics, ques- 
tions of expediency, even quarrels. Did you sup- 
pose that no one quarrelled here? Many do. 
There are even long-standing feuds among them. 

The holders of different opinions on religion 
are often hot in their arguments. Coming here 
with the same beliefs they had on earth, and being 
able to visualise their ideals and actually to ex- 
perience the things they are expecting, two men 
who hold opposite creeds forcibly are each more 
intolerant than ever before. Each is certain that 
he is right and that the other is wrong. This 
stubbornness of belief is strongest with those who 
have been here only a short time. After a while 
they fall into a larger tolerance, living their own 

64 



THE SECOND WIFE OVER THERE 65 

lives more and more, and enjoying the world of 
proofs and realisations which each soul builds for 
itself. 

But I want to give you an illustration of the 
sort of questions on which I am asked to pass 
judgment. 

There are two women here who in life were 
both married to one man, though not at the same 
time. The first woman died, then the man mar- 
ried again, and soon — not more than a year or 
two after — the man and his second wife both came 
out. The first wife considers herself the man's 
only wife, and she follows him about everywhere. 
She says that he promised to meet her in heaven. 
He is more inclined to the second wife, though 
he still feels affection for Wife No. 1. He is 
rather impatient at what he calls her unreason- 
ableness. He told me one day that he would 
gladly give them both up, if he could be left in 
peace to carry out certain studies in which he is 
interested. These were among the people I met 
soon after I began to be strong myself here — it 
was not so very long ago ; and the man has sought 
my society so much that the women, in order to 
be near him, have come along too. 

One day they all three came to me and pro- 



66 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

pounded their question — or, rather, Wife No. I 
propounded it. She said: 

"This man is my husband. Should not, there- 
fore, this other woman go far away and leave 
him altogether to me?" 

I asked Wife No. 2 what she had to say. Her 
answer was that she would be all alone here but 
for her husband, and that as she had had him last, 
he now belonged more to her than to the other. 

In a flash the memory came to me of those 
Sadducees who propounded a similar question to 
Christ, and I quoted His answer as nearly as I 
could remember it: that "when they shall rise 
from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given 
in marriage; but are as the angels which are in 
heaven." 

My answer was as much a staggerer for them 
as their question had been for me, and they went 
away to think about it. 

When they were gone I began myself to ponder 
the question. I had already observed that, 
whether or not all here are as the angels in 
heaven, there does seem to be a good deal of 
mating and rejoining of former mates. The sex 
distinction is as real here as on the earth, though, 
of course, its expression is not exactly the same. 
I asked myself a good many questions which per- 



THE SECOND WIFE OVER THERE 67 

haps would never have occurred to me but for 
the troubles of this interesting triad, and I 
thought of the man I had somewhere read about, 
who said that he never knew his own opinion of 
anything until he tried to express it to somebody. 

After a while the three came to me again and 
said that they had been talking things over, per- 
haps after the manner of angels in heaven; for 
Wife No. 1 told me that she had decided to "let" 
her husband spend a part of his time with the 
other woman, if he wanted to. 

Now, the man had a sweetheart, a girl sweet- 
heart, before he had either of his wives. The girl 
is out here somewhere, and the man often has 
a strong desire to try to find her. What oppor- 
tunity he will now have to do so, I cannot say. 
The situation is rather depressing for the poor 
fellow. It is bad enough to have one person who 
insists on every minute of your society, without 
having two. And I think his case is not unusual. 
Perhaps the only way in which he can get free 
from his two insistent companions is by going 
back to the earth. 

There is a way, however, by which he could 
secure solitude; but he does not know of it. A 
man who knows how can isolate himself here 
as well as he could on earth; he can build round 



68 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

himself a wall which only the eyes of a great in- 
itiate can pierce. I have not told this secret to 
my friend; but perhaps I shall some day, if it 
seems necessary for his development that he have 
a little solitude. At present it seems to me that 
he will learn more from adjusting to this double 
claim and trying to find the truth that lies in it. 
Perhaps he may learn that really, essentially, fun- 
damentally, he does not "belong" to either of 
these women. The souls out here seem to belong 
to themselves, and after the first few years they 
get to love liberty so much that they are ready 
to yield a little of their claim upon others. 

This is a great place in which to grow, if one 
really wants to grow; though few persons take 
advantage of its possibilities. Most are content 
to assimilate the experiences they had on earth. 
It would be depressing to one who did not realise 
that will is free, to see how souls let slip their op- 
portunities here, even as they did on the moon- 
guarded planet. 

There are teachers here who stand ready to 
help anyone who wishes their help in making real 
and deep studies in the mysteries of life — the life 
here, the life there, and in the remote past. 

If a man understands that his recent sojourn 
on earth was merely the latest of a long series 



THE SECOND WIFE OVER THERE 69 

of lives, and if he concentrates his mind towards 
recovering the memories of the distant past, he 
can recover them. Some persons may think that 
the mere dropping of the veil of matter should 
free the soul from all obscuration; but, as on 
earth so out here, "things are not thus and so 
because they ought to be, but because they are." 
We draw to ourselves the experiences which 
we are ready for and which we demand, and most 
souls do not demand enough here, any more than 
they did in life. Tell them to demand more, and 
the demand will be answered. 



LETTER XVIII 

INDIVIDUAL HELLS 

SOME time ago I told you of my intention 
to visit hell ; but when I began investigations 
on that line there proved to be many hells. 

Each man who is not content with the ortho- 
dox hell of fire and brimstone builds one out of 
mind-stuff suited to his imaginative need. 

I believe that men place themselves in hell, 
that no God puts them there. I began looking 
for a hell of fire and brimstone, and found it. 
Dante must have seen the same things I saw. 

But there are other and individual hells 

(The writing suddenly stopped, for no appar- 
ent reason, and was not continued that night.) 



70 



LETTER XIX 

A LITTLE HOME IN HEAVEN 

1HAVE met a very interesting man since last 
I wrote to you. He is a lover who for ten 
years waited here for his love to come to him. 

They said on earth that he was dead, and they 
urged her to love another; but she could not for- 
get him, for every night he met her soul in 
dreams, every night she came out to him here, 
and sometimes she could recall on waking all that 
he had said to her in sleep. She had told him 
that she would not delay long in the sunshine 
world, but would come out to him in the self- 
lighted world. 

Only a little while ago she came. He had been 
long getting ready for her coming, and had built 
in the substance of this world the little home he 
had planned to build for her in the outer world. 

He told me how one night when she came to 
him in dream, she said that she would rejoin him 
on the morrow, never to leave him again. He 
was startled, and would almost have stayed her; 

7i 



72 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

because he had died a sudden and painful death, 
and he dreaded pain for her. Always he had 
watched over her, warning her of danger; but 
this time he felt, after the first shock of the mes- 
sage was over, that she was really coming. And 
he was very happy. 

He had found no other love out here ; for when 
one leaves the earth full of a great affection, and 
when the earthly loved one does not forget, the 
tie can hold for many years unweakened. You 
on the earth have forgotten so much of what you 
learned here that you do not realise how your 
thought of us can make us happy, do not realise 
how your forgetfulness of us can throw us back 
entirely upon ourselves. 

Often those who go farthest here, who really 
grow in spirituality, are those whose loves have 
forgotten them on earth; but it is sad to be for- 
gotten, nevertheless. 

It is a bitter power you make possible to us 
when you thus throw us back upon ourselves ; and 
not all souls are strong enough or aspiring enough 
to make use of the lonely impetus that might help 
them to scale the ladder of spiritual knowledge. 

But to return to my lovers. All that day he 
remained near her. He would not rest; for, as 
I have told you, we generally rest a little when 



A LITTLE HOME IN HEAVEN 73 

the sun shines on the earth. All that day he re- 
mained near her. He could not see her body, 
for the rays of sunlight were too strong for him. 
But, after hours of waiting, suddenly he felt a 
hand in his, and though she was invisible to him, 
yet he knew that she was here. And he spoke to 
her, using such words as he would have used on 
earth. She did not seem to understand. He spoke 
again, and still she did not answer; but he knew 
from the pressure of her hand that she realised 
his presence. So hand in hand they stood there 
in the darkness of the sunlight, the man able to 
speak because of his long experience in this world 
of subtle sounds, the woman speechless and be- 
wildered, but still clinging to his hand. 

When the sunshine went away he was able to 
see her face, and her eyes were wide and fright- 
ened; but still she seemed held to the room in 
which lay the body which had been she. It was 
summer, and the windows were open. He sought 
to draw her away into the perfumed night which 
to them was day; but she held his hand and would 
not let him go. 

At last he drew her away a short distance and 
spoke to her again. Now she heard and an- 
swered him. 

"Beloved," she said, "which is I? For I see 



74 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

myself — I feel myself — back there also. I seem 
to be in two places. Which I is really I ?" 

He comforted her with loving words. He was 
still afraid to caress her, for the touch of souls 
is very keen, and he feared lest she should go 
back into the form which seemed to be so near 
them, and thus be lost to him again. But though 
she had often come to him in dreams, it had not 
been so vividly as this time, and he felt that she 
had really passed through the great change. 

She still clung to his hand, yet seemed afraid 
to go out with him — out and away from it. He 
stayed there with her all that night and all the 
next day, when the darkening sun came again, and 
again he could not see her. 

Once the well-meaning friends of his beloved 
disturbed her body, doing those sacred offices 
which seem so necessary to the living, but which 
may sorely disturb the dead. 

He stayed with her the second night and all 
the second day. He could hear the sobs of her 
grieving parents, though they could not see either 
him or their daughter; but on the second night 
the little dog of his love came into the room where 
it lay, the room in which their two souls still 
stood, and the little dog saw them and whined 



A LITTLE HOME IN HEAVEN 75 

piteously. The man could hear it, and she also 
could hear it 

And now she could hear him more plainly when 
he spoke to her. 

"Where will they take it?" she asked him. 

He recalled the time when he had been held 
spellbound near his own lifeless form, over which 
his loved one had shed bitter tears. And he asked 
her if it would not be better to come away al- 
together; but she could not, or thought she could 
not. 

On the third day he knew from the agitation 
of his love that they were placing her body in 
the coffin. After a while he felt, though he could 
not see, that many other persons were in the room, 
and he heard mournful music. Music can reach 
from one world to another, can be heard far more 
plainly than human voices, which generally can- 
not be heard at all except by the trained listener. 

By and by his love was sorely agitated, and 
he also, through sympathy with her ; and they felt 
themselves going slowly — oh, so slowly! — along. 
And he said to her: 

"Do not be grieved. They are taking it to 
the burial; but you are safe with me." He knew 
that she was much troubled. 

It is not for nothing that over the house of 



76 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

death there always hangs a strange hush, not to 
be explained by the mere losing of the loved one. 
Those who remain behind feel, though they can- 
not see, the soul of the one who has gone out. 
Their souls are full of sympathy for him in his 
bewilderment. 

The change need not be painful if one would 
only remember that it has been passed through 
before ; but one so easily forgets. We sometimes 
call the earth the Valley of Forgetfulness. 

During the days and weeks that followed this 
lover remained with his loved one, ever trying to 
draw her away from the earth and from it, which 
had for her, as for so many, a fearsome fascina- 
tion. 

It is said that the souls of those who have lived 
long on earth more easily detach themselves; 
but this woman was still young, only about thirty, 
and even with the help of her lover it was a little 
time before she could get free. 

But one day (or night, as you would say) he 
showed her the home which he had built for her, 
and it was literally a mansion in the sky. She 
entered with him, and it became their home. 

Sometimes he leaves her for a little while, or 
she leaves him; for the joy of being together is 
heightened here, as on the earth, by an occasional 



A LITTLE HOME IN HEAVEN 77 

separation; but not until she was content and ac- 
customed to the new life did he leave her at all. 

During the first days the habit of earthly 
hunger often held her, and he tried to appease it 
by giving her the softer substance which we know 
here. Gradually she became weaned altogether 
from the earth and the habits of the earth, only 
going back occasionally in a dream to her father 
and mother. 

Do not disregard your dreams about the dead. 
They always mean something. They do not al- 
ways mean what the dream would seem to sig- 
nify; for the door between the two worlds is 
very narrow, and thoughts are often shaken out 
of place in passing through. But dreams about 
the dead mean something. We can reach you in 
that way. 

I came to you in a dream the other night, stand- 
ing behind and outside the gate of a walled gar- 
den in which you were enclosed. I smiled and 
beckoned you to come out to me; but I did not 
wish you to come out to stay. I only meant that 
you should come out in spirit; for if you come 
out occasionally it is easier for me to go into your 
world. 

Good night. 



LETTER XX 

THE MAN WHO FOUND GOD 

THERE seems to be no way in which I can 
better teach you about this life, so strange 
to you, than by telling my experiences and conver- 
sations with men and women here. 

I said one night not long ago that I had met 
more saints than philosophers, and I want to tell 
you now about a man who seems to be a genuine 
saint. Yes, there are little saints and great saints, 
as there are little and great sinners. 

One day I was walking on a mountain top. I 
say "walking," for it seemed about the same, 
though it takes but little energy to walk here. 

On the mountain top I saw a man standing 
alone. He was looking out and far away, but I 
could not see what he was looking at. He was 
abstracted and communing with himself, or with 
some presence of which I was unaware. 

I waited for some time. At last, drawing a 
long breath — for we breathe here — he turned his 
eyes to me and said, with a kind smile : 

78 



THE MAN WHO FOUND GOD 79 

"Can I do anything for you, brother?" 

I was embarrassed for a moment, feeling that 
I might have intruded upon some sweet com- 
munion. 

"If I am not too bold in asking," I said, "would 
you tell me what you were thinking as you stood 
there looking into space?" 

I was conscious of my presumption; but being 
so determined to learn what can be known, if 
sometimes I am too bold in making inquiries, I 
feel that my very earnestness may win for me the 
forgiveness of those I question. 

This man had a beautiful beardless face and 
young-looking eyes; but his garments were the 
ordinary garments of one who thinks little or 
nothing of his appearance. That very uncon- 
sciousness of the outer form may sometimes give 
it a peculiar majesty. 

He looked at me in silence for a moment ; then 
he said: 

"I was trying to draw near to God." 

"And what is God?" I asked; "and where is 
God?" 

He smiled. I never saw a smile like his, as 
he answered: 

"God is everywhere. God is" 



80 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"What is He?" I persisted; and again he re- 
peated, but with a different emphasis: 

"God is." 

"What do you mean?" I asked. 

"God is, God is," he said. 

I do not know how his meaning was conveyed 
to me, perhaps by sympathy; but it suddenly 
flashed into my mind that when he said, "God is" 
he expressed the completest realisation of God 
which is possible to the spirit; and when he said, 
a God is," he meant me to understand that there 
was no being, nothing that is, except God. 

There must have been in my face a reflection 
of what I felt, for the saint then said to me: 

"Do you not also know that He is, and that 
all that is, is He?" 

"I am beginning to feel what you mean," I an- 
swered, "though I doubtless feel but a little of it." 

He smiled, and made no reply; but my mind 
was full of questions. 

"When you were on earth," I said, "did you 
think much about God?" 

"Always. I thought of little else. I sought 
Him everywhere, but seemed only at times to get 
flashes of consciousness as to what He really was. 
Sometimes when praying, for I prayed much, 
there would come to me suddenly the question, 



THE MAN WHO FOUND GOD 8 1 

'To what are you praying?' And I would an- 
swer aloud, 'To God, to God!' But though I 
prayed to Him every day for years, only occa- 
sionally did I get a flash of that true conscious- 
ness of God. Finally, one day when I was alone 
in the woods, there came the great revelation. It 
came not in any form of words, but rather in a 
wordless and formless wonder, too vast for the 
limitation of thought. I fell upon the ground 
and must have lost consciousness, for after a 
while — how long a time I do not know — I awoke, 
and got up and looked about me. Then grad- 
ually I remembered the experience which had been 
too big for me while I was feeling it. 

"I could put into the form of words the re- 
alisation which had been too much for my mor- 
tality to bear, and the words I used to myself 
were, 'All that is, is God.' It seemed very sim- 
ple, yet it was far from simple. 'AH that is, is 
God.' That must include me and all my fellow 
beings, human and animal; even the trees and 
the birds and the rivers must be a part of God, if 
God were all that is. 

"From that moment life assumed a new mean- 
ing for me. I could not see a human face with- 
out remembering the revelation — that that hu- 
man being I saw was a part of God. When my 



82 [LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

dog looked at me, I said to him aloud, 'You are 
a part of God.* When I stood beside a river and 
listened to the sound of its waters, I said to my- 
self, 'I am listening to the voice of God.' When 
a fellow being was angry with me, I asked myself, 
'In what way have I offended God?' When one 
spoke lovingly to me, I said, 'God is loving me 
now,' and the realisation nearly took my breath 
away. Life became unbelievably beautiful. 

"Therefore I had been so absorbed in God, 
in trying to find God, that I had not given much 
thought to my fellow beings, and had even ne- 
glected those nearest me; but from that day I 
began to mingle with my human brethren. I 
found that as more and more I sought God in 
them, more and more God responded to me 
through them. And life became still more won- 
derful. 

"Sometimes I tried to tell others what I felt, 
but they did not always understand me. It was 
thus I began to realise that God had purposely, 
for some reason of His own, covered Himself 
with veils. Was it that He might have the 
pleasure of tearing them away? If so, I would 
help Him all I could. So I tried to make other 
men grasp the knowledge of God which I my- 
self had attained. For years I taught men. At 



THE MAN WHO FOUND GOD 83 

first I wanted to teach everybody; but I soon came 
to see that that was impossible, and so I selected 
a few who called themselves my disciples. They 
did not always tell the world that they were my 
disciples, because I asked them not to do so. But 
I urged each of them to give to someone as much 
as possible of the knowledge that I had given to 
him. And so I think that many have come to 
feel a little of the wonder which was revealed to 
me that day alone in the woods, when I awoke 
to the knowledge that God is, God is." 

Then the saint turned and left me, with all 
my questions unanswered. I wanted to ask him 
when and how he had left the earth, and what 
work he was doing out here — but he was gone ! 

Perhaps I shall see him again some day. But 
whether I do or not, he has given me something 
which I in turn give to you, as he himself desired 
to give it to the world. 

That is all for to-night. 



LETTER XXI 

THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL 

ONE of the joys of being here is the leisure 
for dreaming and for getting acquainted 
with oneself. 

Of course there is plenty to do; but though I 
intend to go back to the world in a few years, 
I feel that there is time to get acquainted with 
myself. I tried to do that on earth, more or less ; 
but here there are fewer demands on me. The 
mere labour of dressing and undressing is lighter, 
and I do not have to earn my living now, nor 
anybody else's. 

You, too, could take time to loaf, if you thought 
you could. You can do practically anything you 
think you can do. 

I purpose, for instance, in a few years not only 
to pick up a general knowledge of the conditions 
of this four-dimensional world, but to go back 
over my other lives and assimilate what I learned 
in them. I want to make a synthesis of the com- 
plete experiences of my ego up to this date, and 

84 



THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL 85 

to judge from that synthesis what I can do in the 
future with least resistance. I believe, but am 
not quite sure, that I can bring back much of this 
knowledge with me when I am born again. 

I shall try to tell you — or some of you — when 
and about where to look for me again. Oh, don't 
be startled ! It will not be for some time yet. An 
early date would necessitate hurry, and I do not 
wish to hurry. I could probably force the com- 
ing back, but that would be unwise, for I should 
then come back with less power than I want. Ac- 
tion and reaction being opposite and equal, and 
the unit, or ego, being able to generate only so 
much energy in a given time, it is better for me 
to rest in this condition of light matter until I 
have accumulated energy enough to come back 
with power. I shall not do, however, as many 
souls do ; they stay out here until they are as tired 
of this world as they formerly were tired of the 
earth, and then are driven back half unconsciously 
by the irresistible force of the tide of rhythm. I 
want to guide that rhythm. 

Since I have been here one man whom I know 
has gone back to the earth. He was about ready 
to go when I first found him. The strange part 
of it was that he himself did not understand his 
condition. He complained of being tired of things 



$6 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

and of wanting to rest much. That was probably 
a natural instinct for rest, in preparation for the 
supreme effort of opening the doors of matter 
again. It is easy to come out here, but it re- 
quires some effort to go from this world into 
yours. 

I know where that soul is now, for the Teacher 
told me. I had spoken to the Teacher about him, 
but he already knew of his existence. It was 
rather strange, for the man was one in whom I 
should have fancied that the Teacher would have 
taken little interest. But one never knows. Per- 
haps in his next life he may really begin to study 
the philosophy which they teach. 

But I was speaking of the larger leisure out 
here. I wish you could arrange your life so as 
to have a little more leisure. I do not want you 
to be lazy, but the passive conditions of the mind 
are quite as valuable as the active conditions. It 
is when you are passive that we can reach you. 
When your mind and body are always occupied, 
it is difficult to impress you with any message of 
the soul. Find a little more time each day for 
doing nothing at all. It is good to do nothing 
sometimes; then the semi-conscious parts of your 
mind can work. They can remind you that there 
is an inner life ; for the inner life that is "capable" 



THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL 87 

to you on earth is really the point of contact with 
the world in which we live. 

I have said that the two worlds touch, and they 
touch through the inner. You go in to come out. 
It is a paradox, and paradoxes conceal great 
truths. Contradictions are not truths, but a para- 
dox is not a contradiction. 

There is a great difference in the length of 
time that people stay out here. You talk of be- 
ing homesick. There are souls here who are 
homesick for the earth. They sometimes go back 
almost at once, which is generally a mistake. Un- 
less one is young and still has a store of unused 
energy saved over from the last life, in going 
back to the earth too soon one lacks the force of a 
strong rebound. 

It is strange to see a man here as homesick for 
the earth as certain poets and dreamers on earth 
are homesick for the inner life. 

This use of the terms "outer" and "inner" may 
seem confusing; but you must remember that while 
you go in to come to us, we go out to come to 
you. In our normal state here we are living al- 
most a subjective life. We become more and 
more objective as we touch your world. You be- 
come more and more subjective as you touch our 
world. If you only knew it, you could come to 



88 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

us at almost any time for a brief visit — I mean, 
by going deep enough into yourself. 

If you want to try the experiment and will not 
be afraid, I can take you out here without your 
quite losing consciousness in your body — I mean 
without your being in deep sleep. You can call 
me when you want to make a trial. If I do not 
come at once, do not be discouraged. Of course 
at the moment I might be doing something else; 
but in that case I will come at another time. 

There is no hurry. That is what I want to 
impress upon you. What you do not do this 
year you can perhaps do next year; but if you are 
always rushing after things, you can accomplish 
little in this particular work. Eternity is long 
enough for the full development of the ego of 
man. Eternity seems to have been designed for 
that end. That was a sound statement which 
was given at one time: "The object of life is life." 
I have realised that more fully since I had an op- 
portunity to study eternity from a new angle. 
This is a very good angle from which to view 
both time and eternity. I see now what I did not 
see before, that I myself have never wasted any 
time. Even my failures were a valuable part of 
my experience. We lose to gain again. We go in 
and out of power sometimes as we go in and out 



THE LEISURE OF THE SOUL 89 

of life, to learn what is there and outside. In this, 
as in all things, the object of life is life. 

Do not hurry. A man may grow gradually 
into power and knowledge, or he may take them 
by force. Will is free. But the gradual growth 
has a less powerful reaction. 



LETTER XXII 

THE SERPENT OF ETERNITY 

I WANT to talk to you to-night about eter- 
nity. Until I came out, I never had a grasp 
on that problem. I thought only in terms of 
months and years and centuries; now I see the 
full sweep of the circle. The comings out and 
the goings into matter are no more than the sys- 
tole and the diastole of the ego-heart; and, speak- 
ing from the standpoint of eternity, they are rela- 
tively as brief. To you a lifetime is a long time. 
It used to seem so to me, but it does not seem so 
now. 

People are always saying, "If I had my life 
to live over, I would do so and so.'' Now, no 
man has any particular life to live over, any more 
than the heart can go back and beat over again 
the beat of the second previous; but every man 
has his next life to prepare for. Suppose you 
have made a botch of your existence. Most men 
have, viewed from the standpoint of their highest 
ideal; but every man who can think must have 

90 



THE SERPENT OF ETERNITY 9 1 

assimilated some experience which he can carry 
over with him. He may not, on coming out into 
the sunlight of another life on earth, be able to 
remember the details of his former experience, 
though some men can recall them by a sufficient 
training and a fixed will ; but the tendencies of any 
given life, the unexplained impulses and desires, 
are in nearly all cases brought over. 

You should get away from the mental habit of 
regarding your present life as the only one, get 
rid of the idea that the life you expect to lead on 
this side, after your death, is to be an endless 
existence in one state. You could no more endure 
such an endless existence in the subtle matter of 
the inner world than you could endure to live for- 
ever in the gross matter in which you are now 
encased. You would weary of it. You could not 
support it. 

Do get this idea of rhythm into your brain. All 
beings are subject to the law of rhythm, even the 
gods, — though in a greater way than ourselves, 
with longer periods of flux and reflux. 

I did not want to leave the earth, I fought 
against' it until the last; but now I see that my 
coming out was inevitable because of the condi- 
tions. Had I begun earlier I might have pro- 
visioned my craft for a longer cruise; but when 



92 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

the coal and water had run out I had to make 
port. 

It is possible to provision even a small life- 
craft for a longer voyage than the allotted three- 
score years and ten; but one must economise the 
coal and not waste the water. There are some 
who will understand that water is the fluid of life. 

Many persons resent the idea that the life after 
death is not eternal, a never-ending progression 
in spiritual realms; though few who so object 
have much of an idea what they mean when they 
talk of spiritual realms. 

Life everlasting is possible to all souls — yes; 
but it is not possible to go on forever in one direc- 
tion. Evolution is a curve. Eternity is a circle, a 
serpent that swallows its own tail. Until you are 
willing to go in and out of dense matter, you will 
never learn to transcend matter. There are those 
who can stay in or out at will, and, relatively 
speaking, as long as they choose; but they are 
never those who shrink from either form of life. 

I used to shrink from what I called death. 
There are those on this side who shrink from 
what they call death. Do you know what they 
call death? It is rebirth into the world. Yes, 
even so. 

There are many here who are as ignorant of 



THE SERPENT OF ETERNITY 93 

rhythm as most people are on your side. I have 
met men and women who did not even know that 
they would go back to the earth again, who 
talked of the "great change" as the men of earth 
talk of dying, and of all that lay beyond as "un- 
proved and unprovable." It would be tragic if 
it were not so absurd. 

When I knew that I had to die I determined 
to carry with me memory, philosophy, and rea- 
son. 

Now I want to say something which will per- 
haps surprise you. There is a man who wrote a 
book called The Law of Psychic Phenomena,, and 
in that book he said certain things of those two 
parts of the mind which he called the subjective 
and the objective. He said that the subjective 
mind was incapable of inductive reasoning, that 
the subjective mind would accept any premise 
given it by the objective mind, and would reason 
from that premise with matchless logic; but that 
it could not go behind the premise, that it could 
not reason backwards. 

Now, remember that in this form of matter 
where I am men are living principally a sub- 
jective life, as men on earth live principally an ob- 
jective life. These people here, being in the sub- 
jective, reason from the premises already given 



94 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

them during their objective or earth existence. 
That is why most of those who last lived in the 
so-called Western lands, where the idea of rhythm 
or rebirth is unpopular, came out here with the 
fixed idea that they would not go back into earth 
life. Hence most of them still reason from that 
premise. 

Do you not understand that what you believe 
you are going to be out here is largely determina- 
tive of what you will be. Those who do not believe 
in rebirth cannot forever escape the rhythm of 
rebirth; but they hold to their belief until the 
tide of rhythm sweeps them along with it and 
forces them into gross matter again, into which 
they go quite unprepared, carrying with them 
almost no memory of their life out here. They 
carried out here the memory of the earth life be- 
cause they expected so to carry it. 

Many Orientals who have always believed in 
rebirth remember their former lives, because 
they expected to remember them. 

Yes, when I realised that I had to leave the 
earth I laid a spell upon myself. I determined 
to remember through both the going out and the 
subsequent coming in. Of course I cannot swear 
now to remember everything when I come into 
heavy matter again ; but I am determined to do so 



THE SERPENT OF ETERNITY 95 

if possible; and I shall succeed to some extent if 
I do not get the wrong mother. I intend to take 
great care on that point, and to choose a mother 
who is familiar with the idea of rebirth. If pos- 
sible, I want to choose a mother who actually 

knew me in my last life as , and who, if I 

shall announce in childhood that I am that same 

whom she knew when a young girl, will not 

chide me and drive me back into myself with her 
doubts. 

I believe that many children carry over into 
earth life memories of their lives out here, but 
that those memories are afterwards lost by rea- 
son of the suggestion constantly given to children 
that they are newly created, a fresh from the hand 
of God," etc., etc. 

Eternity is indeed long, and there are more 
things on earth and heaven than are dreamed of 
in the philosophy of the average teacher of chil- 
dren. 

If you could only get hold of the idea of im- 
mortal life and cling to it! If you could realise 
yourself as being without beginning and without 
end, then you might commence to do things worth 
while. It is a wonderful consciousness that con- 
sciousness of eternity. Small troubles seem in- 
deed small to him who thinks of himself in the 



g6 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

terms of a million years. You may make the 
figure a billion, or whatever you like, but the idea 
is the same. No man can grasp the idea of a 
million years, or a million dollars, or a million of 
anything ; the figure is merely a symbol for a great 
quantity, whether it be years or gold pieces. The 
idea cannot be fixed; there will always be some- 
thing that escapes. No millionaire knows exactly 
what he is worth at any given time; for there is 
always interest to be counted, and the value is a 
shifting one. It is so with immortality. Do not 
think of yourself as having lived a million years, 
or a trillion years, but. as truly immortal, without 
beginning or end. The man who knows himself 
to be rich is richer than the man who says that 
he has a certain amount of money, be the amount 
large or small. So rest in the consciousness of 
eternity and work in the consciousness of eternity. 
That is all for to-night. 



LETTER XXIII 

A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANT 

TELL the friend who is so anxious lest I do 
you harm by writing with your hand that 
that matter was thoroughly threshed out on this 
side between the Teacher and me before it began 
to take form on your side. 

Ordinary mediumship, where the organism of 
a more or less unhealthy person on earth is opened 
indiscriminately for the entrance and obsession of 
any passing spirit, good or evil, is a very different 
proposition from this. Here I, who was your 
friend in the world, having passed beyond, reach 
back to instruct you from my greater knowledge 
on this side. 

I am not making any opening in your nervous 
system through which irresponsible and evil forces 
can enter and take possession of you. In fact, if 
any spirit, good or bad, should make such an at- 
tempt, he would have to reckon with me, and I 
am not powerless. I know now, have both re- 
membered and been taught, secrets by which I can 
protect you from what is generally known as me- 

97 



98 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

diumship. Furthermore, I advise you never, even 
at the urgent prayer of those whose loved ones 
have gone out — never to lend yourself to them. 
The wanderers in the so-called invisible world 
have no right to come and demand entrance 
through your organism, merely because it is so 
constituted that they could enter, any more than a 
street crowd would have the right to force its way 
into your home, merely because its members were 
curious, hungry, or cold. Do not allow it. Per- 
mission was once given, yes ; but the case was ex- 
ceptional and was not based on the personal de- 
sire or curiosity of anybody — not even yourself. 
I doubt if permission will ever be granted again. 

Many things have changed since I began to 
write with you. At first I used your hand and 
arm from the outside — sometimes, as you re- 
member, with such force as to make them lame 
the next day. Then, grown more familiar with 
the means at my disposal, I tried another method, 
and you noticed a change in the character of the 
writing. It began clumsily, with large and badly 
formed characters, gradually becoming clearer as 
my control of the instrument I was using was bet- 
ter established. 

Now, for the last few times I have used still 
another and a third method. I enter your mind, 



A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENDANT 99 

putting myself in absolute telepathic rapport with 
your mind, impressing upon your mind itself the 
things I wish to say. In order to write in this 
way, you have to make yourself utterly passive, 
stilling all individual thought and yielding your- 
self to my thought; but that is no more than you 
do every day in reading a fascinating book. You 
give your mind to the author who leads you along, 
rapt and passive, by means of the printed page. 

These experiments in perfecting a way of com- 
munication have been very interesting to me. 

Tell your friend that I am not a child, nor a 
reckless experimentalist. Not only in my last life 
on earth but in many former lives I have been a 
student of the higher science, giving myself abso- 
lutely to truth and to the quest of truth. I have 
never wantonly used any human being to his or 
her detriment, and I certainly shall not begin with 
you, my true friend and student. 

Nor shall I interfere in any way with your life, 
or with your studies and work. The idea is non- 
sensical. While I walked the world on two feet 
I was never considered a dangerous man. I have 
not changed my character merely by changing my 
clothes and putting on a lighter suit. 

I have certain things to say to the world. At 
present you are the only person who can act as 



100 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

amanuensis for me. This is neither my fault nor 
yours. The question before us is not whether I 
want the letters written, or even whether you 
want to write them, but whether they will be bene- 
ficial to the world. I think they will. You think 

they may be. B thinks that they are not 

only immensely valuable, but unique. So-and-so 
and So-and-so have doubts and fears. I cannot 
help that, nor can you. 

Bless their hearts! Why should they be so 
anxious to bolt the doors behind me? I shall cer- 
tainly not try to run their affairs for them from 
this side. They are equal to their job, or they 
would not be able to hold it. But this is quite a 
different job which I have given myself, and you 
have kindly consented to help me. 

You may not get much reward for your labour, 
save the shake of the wiseacres' heads and their 
superior smiles, and the suggestion of the more 
scientifically inclined that I am your own "sub- 
conscious mind." I shall not be offended by that 
hypothesis, nor need you. 

Of course you are not worried, for if you were 
I could not write. Your mind has to be placid as 
a lake on a windless night in order for me to 
write at all. 

Give my love to them. 



LETTER XXIV 



FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE 



I HAVE been doing many things of late. You 
could never imagine where I went the other 
day — to the great funeral of the Emperor of 
Japan. You could not go from Paris to Japan 
and return in so short a time, could you? But I 
did. 

An hour before starting I did not even know 
that the Emperor of Japan was dead. The 
Teacher sought me out and invited me to go with 
him. He said that something would occur there 
which I ought to see. 

His prophecy was verified. I saw a soul, a 
great soul, go out as a suicide. It was sad and 
terrible. 

But as I write this the Teacher comes and 
stands beside me; he advises me to say no more 
on that subject. 

One sees horrible things out here, as well as 
beautiful things. I can only say with regard to 

IOI 



102 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

suicide, that if men knew what awaits those who 
go out by their own hand, they would remain with 
the evil that they know. I am sorry I cannot tell 
you more about this, for it would interest you. 
The testimony of an eye-witness is always more 
convincing than the mere repetition of theories. 

The appearance of the Teacher with his advice 
has put out of my mind for the moment the desire 
to write. But I will come again. , 

Later. 

I have been able to do what you so much de- 
sired — to find the boy who came out accidentally 
by drowning. 

As you looked at his photograph, I saw it 
through your eyes, and carried away the memory 
of the face. I found him wandering about, quite 
bewildered. When I spoke to him of you and 
said that you had asked me to help him, he seemed 
surprised. 

I was able to give him a little aid, though he 
has a friend here — an old man, who is nearer to 
him than I could ever be. He will gradually ad- 
just himself to the new conditions. 

You had better not try to speak with him. He 
is on a different path, and is being looked after, 
for he has friends. The little help I was able to 



FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE IO3 

give was in the nature of information. He needed 
diversion from a too-pressing thought, and I sug- 
gested one or two ways of passing time which are 
both agreeable and instructive. 

You wonder at the expression "passing time" ? 
But time exists out here. Wherever there is se- 
quence, there is time. There may come a "time" 
when all things will exist simultaneously, past, 
present and — shall we say future? But so long 
as past, present and future are more or less dis- 
tinct, so long time is. It is nothing but the prin- 
ciple of sequence. Did you fancy it was anything 
else? 

Interiorly, that is, deep within the self, one may 
find a silent place where all things seem to exist in 
unison; but as soon as the soul even there at- 
tempts to examine things separately, then sequence 
begins. 

The union with the All is another matter. That 
is, or seems to be, timeless; but as soon as one 
attempts to unite with or to be conscious of things, 
time is manifest. 



LETTER XXV 



A SHADOWLESS WORLD 



1HAD been here some time before I noticed 
one of the most marked peculiarities of this 
world. 

One night as I was passing slowly along, I saw 
a group of persons approaching me. It was very 
light where they were, because there were so many 
of them. Suddenly, as I saw this light, a thought 
came to my mind, a saying from one of the Her- 
metic books : "Where the light is strongest, there 
are the shadows deepest." But on looking at 
these men and women, I saw that they cast no 
shadows. 

I hailed the nearest man — you must remember 
that this was soon after I came out, and when I 
was still more ignorant than I am now — and I 
called his attention to this peculiar phenomenon 
of a shadowless yet brilliantly lighted world. He 
smiled at my surprise, and said: 

"You have not been here long, have you?" 
104 



A SHADOWLESS WORLD IO5 

"No." 

"Then you are not aware that we light our own 
place? The substance of which our bodies are 
composed is radiant. How could our forms cast 
shadows, when light radiates from them in all 
directions?" 

"And in the sunlight?" I asked. 

"Oh," he answered, "you know that in the sun- 
light we cannot be seen at all ! The light of the 
sun is coarse and crude, and it puts out the light 
of the spirits." 

Does it seem strange to you that at this moment 
I can feel the warmth of that wood fire by which 
you sit? There is a magic in burning wood. The 
combustion of coal has quite a different effect upon 
the psychic atmosphere. If one who had always 
been blind to visions and insensible to the finer 
feelings and premonitions of the invisible world 
would try meditating before a blazing wood fire 
for an hour or two every day or night, his eyes 
and other subtler senses might be opened to things 
of which he had theretofore never even dreamed. 

Those Orientals who worship their God with 
fire are wise and full of visions. The light of 
burning wax has also a magical effect, though dif- 
ferent from that of a wood fire. Sit sometimes 



106 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

in the evening with no light but that of a solitary 
candle, and see what visions will come from the 
''Void." 

I have not told you anything for a long time 
about the boy Lionel. He is now much interested 
in the idea of choosing a family of engineers in 
which to be born again. The thought is one to 
which he is always returning. 

"Why are you in such a hurry to leave me?" I 
asked him, the first time he mentioned the subject. 

"But I do not feel as if I should be leaving you 
altogether," he replied. "I could come out to you 
in dreams." 

"Not at first," I told him. "You would be 
prisoned and blind and deaf for a long time, and 
you might not be able to come out to me here until 
after I had also gone back again to the earth." 

"Then why not come along with me?" he 
asked. "Say, Father, why shouldn't we be born 
as twins?" 

The idea was so absurd that I laughed heartily; 
but Lionel could not see where the joke came in. 

"There are such things as twins," he said, seri- 
ously. "I knew a pair of twin brothers when I 
lived in Boston." 

But, when I return to earth, it is no part of my 



A SHADOWLESS WORLD IO7 

plan to be anybody's twin; so I tell Lionel that if 
he wants to enjoy my society for a time he will 
have to stay quietly where he is. 

"But why can't we go back together?" he still 
asks, "and be cousins or neighbours, at least?" 

"Perhaps we can," I tell him, "if you do not 
spoil everything by an unseemly haste." 

It is strange about this boy. Out in this world 
there is boundless opportunity to work in subtle 
matter, opportunity to invent and experiment; yet 
he wants to get his hands on iron and steel. 
Strange ! 

Some night I will try to bring the boy to pay 
you a visit, so that you can see him- — I mean just 
before you fall asleep. Those are the true visions. 
The ones which come in sleep are apt to be con- 
fused by the jarring of the matter through which 
you pass in waking. Do not forget the boy. I 
have already told him how I come and write with 
your hand, and he is much interested. 

"Why couldn't I operate a telegraph in that 
way?" he asked me; but I advised him not to 
try it. He might interrupt some terrestrial mes- 
sage which had been sent and paid for. 

Occasionally I take him with me up to the pat- 
tern world. He has a little model of his own 
there with which he amuses himself while I am 



108 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

examining other things. It is the model of a 
wheel, and he sets it going by the electricity of his 
fingers. No, it is not made of steel — not as you 
know steel. Why, what you call steel is too 
heavy! It would fall through this world so fast 
that it would not even leave a rent behind it. 

You must understand that the two worlds are 
composed of matter not only moving at a different 
rate of vibration, but charged with a different 
magnetism. It is said that two solid objects can- 
not occupy the same space at the same time ; but 
that law does not apply to two objects — one of 
them belonging to your world and the other to 
ours. As water can be hot and wet at the same 
time, so a square foot of space can contain a 
square foot of earthly matter and a square foot 
of etheric matter. 

No, do not quibble about terms. You have 
no terms for the kind of matter that we use here, 
because you do not know anything about it. 
Lionel and his electric wheel would both be in- 
visible to you if they were set down on the hearth- 
rug before you at this moment. Even the magic 
of that wood fire would not make them visible — 
at least, not in the daylight. 

Some evening — but we will speak of that at 
another time. I must go now. 



LETTER XXVI 



CIRCLES IN THE SAND 



1AM just beginning to enjoy the romance of 
life out here. I must always have had the 
romantic temperament; but only since changing 
my place have I had time and opportunity to give 
rein to it. On earth there was always too much 
to be done, too many duties, too many demands 
on me. Here I am free. 

You have no idea of the meaning of freedom 
unless you can remember when you were out here 
last, and I doubt if you can remember that yet. 

When I say "romance" I mean the charm of 
existence, the magic touch which turns the grey 
face of life to rose colour. You know what I 
mean. 

It is wonderful to have leisure to dream and to 
realise one's dream, for here the realisation goes 
with the dream. Everything is so real, imagina- 
tion is so potent, and the power to link things is 
so great — so almost unlimited! 

109 



IIO LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

The dreamers here are really not idle, for our 
dreaming is a kind of building; and even if it 
were not, we have a right to do about as we 
please. We have earned our vacation. The la- 
bour will come again. We shall reclothe our- 
selves in gross matter and take on its burdens. 

Why, it takes more energy on earth to put one 
heavy foot before another heavy foot, and to pro- 
pel the hundred or two-hundred pound body a 
mile, than it takes here to go around the world! 
That will give you an idea of the quantity of sur- 
plus energy that we have for enjoying ourselves 
and for dream-building. 

Perhaps on earth you work too much — more 
than is really necessary. The mass of needless 
things that you accumulate round you, the artifi- 
cial wants that you create, the break-neck pace of 
your lives to provide all these things, seem to us 
absurd and rather pitiful. Your political econ- 
omy is mere child's play, your governments are 
cumbrous machines for doing the unnecessary, 
most of your work is useless, and your lives would 
be nearly futile if you did not suffer so much that 
your souls learn, though unwillingly, that most of 
their strivings are vain. 

How I used to sweat and groan in the early 
days to make my little circle in the sand! And 



CIRCLES IN THE SAND III 

now I see that if I had taken more time to think, 
I might have recovered something of my past 
knowledge, gained in other lives; and though I 
still had felt obliged to draw my circle in the sand, 
I might have done it with less difficulty and in 
half the time. 

Here, if I choose, I can spend hours in watch- 
ing the changing colours of a cloud. Or, better 
still, I can lie on my back and remember. It is 
wonderful to remember, to let the mind go back 
year after year, life after life, century after cen- 
tury, back and back till one finds oneself — a tur- 
tle! But one can also look ahead, forward and 
forward, life after life, century after century, aeon 
after aeon, till one finds oneself an archangel. The 
looking back is memory; the looking forward is 
creation. Of course we create our own future. 
Who else could do it? We are influenced and 
moved and shifted and helped or retarded by 
others ; but it is we ourselves who forge the chains 
every time. We tie knots that we shall have to 
untie, often with labour and perplexity. 

In going back over my past lives I realise the 
why and the wherefore of my last one. It was, 
in a way, the least satisfactory of many lives — 
save one; but now I see its purpose, and that I 
laid the plans for it when I was last out here. I 



112 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

even arranged to go back to earth at a definite 
time, in order to be with certain freinds who met 
me there. 

But I have turned the corner now, and have be- 
gun the upward march again. Already I am lay- 
ing the lines for my next coming, though there is 
no hurry. Bless you ! I am not going back until 
I have had my fill of the freedom and enjoyment 
of this existence here. 

Also I have much studying to do. I want to 
review what I learned in those hitherto forgotten 
but now remembered lives. 

Do you recall how, when you went to school, 
you had occasionally to review the lessons of the 
preceding weeks or months? That custom is 
based on a sound principle. I am now having my 
review lessons. By and by, before I return to 
the world, I shall review these reviews, fixing by 
will the memories which I specially wish to carry 
over with me. It would be practically impossible 
to carry over intact the great panorama of ex- 
perience which now unrolls itself before the eyes 
of my memory; but there are several fundamen- 
tal things, philosophical principles and illustra- 
tions, which I must not forget. Also I want to 
take with me the knowledge of certain formulae 
and the habit of certain practices which you 



CIRCLES IN THE SAND 113 

would probably call occult; by means of which, 
when I am mature again in my new body, I can 
call into memory this very pageant of experience 
which now rolls before me whenever I will it. 

No, I am not going to tell you about your own 
past. You must, and can, recover it for your- 
self. So can anyone who knows the difference 
between memory and imagination. Yes, the dif- 
ference is subtle, but as real as the difference 
between yesterday and to-morrow. 

I do not want you to be in any hurry about 
coming out here to stay. Remain where you are 
just as long as possible. Much that we do on 
this side you can do almost as well while still 
in the body. Of course you have to use more 
energy, but that is what energy is for — to use. 
Even when we store it, we store it for future 
use. Do not forget that. 

One reason why I rest much now and dream 
and amuse myself is because I want to store as 
much energy as possible, to come back with power. 

It is well that you have taken my advice to 
idle a little and to get acquainted with your own 
soul. There are surprises in store for the per- 
son who will deliberately set out on the quest of 
his soul. The soul is not a will-o'-the-wisp; it 



114 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

is a beacon light to steer by and avoid the rocks 
of materialism and forgetfulness. 

I have had much joy in going back over my 
Greek incarnations. What concentration they 
had — those Greeks ! They knew much. The 
waters of Lethe, for instance, — what a concep- 
tion! — brought from this side by masterly mem- 
ory. 

If man would even try to remember, if he 
would only take time to consider all that he has 
been, there would be more hope of what he may 
become! Why, do you know that man may be- 
come a god — or that which, compared with ordi- 
nary humanity, has all the magnitude and gran- 
deur of a god? u Ye are gods," was not said in 
a merely figurative sense. 

I have met the Master from Galilee, and have 
held communion with Him. There was a man 
— and a god! The world has need of Him 
now. 



LETTER XXVII 



THE MAGIC RING 



IT would be hard for you to understand, merely 
by my telling you, the difference between 
your life and ours. Begin with the difference 
in substance, not only the substance of our bodies, 
but the substance of natural objects which sur- 
round us. 

Do you start at the term "natural objects" 
as applied to the things of this world? You did 
not fancy, did you, that we had escaped Nature? 
No one escapes Nature — not even God. Nature 
is. 

Imagine that you had spent sixty or seventy 
years in a heavy earthly body, a body which in- 
sisted on growing fat, and would get stiff-jointed 
and rheumatic, even going on strike occasionally 
to the extent of laying you up in bed for repairs 
of a more or less clumsy sort. Then fancy your- 
self suddenly exchanging this heavy body for a 
light and elastic form. Can you imagine it? I 

"5 



Il6 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

confess that it would have been difficult for me, 
even a year or two ago. 

Clothed in this form, which is sufficiently ra- 
diant to light its own place when its light is not 
put out by the cruder light of the sun, fancy your- 
self moving from place to place, from person 
to person, from idea to idea. As time goes on 
even the habit of demanding nourishment gradu- 
ally wears off. We are no longer bothered by 
hunger and thirst; though I, for instance, still 
stay myself occasionally with a little nourish- 
ment, an infinitesimal amount compared with the 
beefsteak dinners which I used to eat. 

And we are no longer harassed by the thou- 
sand-and-one petty duties of the earth. Out here 
we have more confidence in moods. Engagements 
are seldom made — that is, binding engagements. 
As a rule, though there are exceptions, desire is 
mutual. I want to see and commune with a friend 
at the same time when he feels a desire for my 
society, and we naturally drift together. The 
companionships here are very beautiful; but the 
solitudes are also full of charm. 

Since the first two or three months I have not 
been lonesome. At first I felt like a fish out of 
water, of course. Nearly everyone does; though 
there are exceptions in the case of very spiritual 



THE MAGIC RING 117 

people who have no earthly ties or ambitions* 
I had so fought the idea of "dying," that my new 
state seemed at first to be the proof of my failure, 
and I used to wander about under the impression 
that I was going to waste much valuable time 
which could have been used to better advantage 
in the storm and stress of earthly living. 

Of course the Teacher came to me; but he was 
too wise to carry me on his back even from the 
first. He reminded me of a few principles, which 
he left me to apply; and gradually, as I got hold 
of the applications, I got hold of myself. Then 
also gradually the beauty and wonder of the new 
condition began to dawn on me, and I saw that 
instead of wasting time I was really gaining tre- 
mendous experience which could be utilised later. 

I have talked with many people here, people of 
all stages of intellectual and moral growth, and 
I am sorry to say that the person who has a clear 
idea of the significance of life and its possibili- 
ties for development is about as rare here as on 
the earth. As I have said before, a man does 
not suddenly become all-wise by changing the 
texture of his body. 

The vain man of earth is likely to be vain 
here, though in his next life the very law of re- 
action — if he has overdone vanity — -may send 



Il8 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

him back as a modest or even bashful person, for 
a while at least, until the reaction has spent it- 
self. In coming out a man brings his character 
and characteristics with him. 

I have often been sorry for men who in life 
had been slaves of the business routine. Many 
of them cannot get away from it for a long time ; 
and instead of enjoying themselves here, they 
go back and forth to and from the scenes of their 
old labours, working over and over some problem 
in tactics or finance until they are almost as weary 
as when they "died." 

As you know, there are teachers here. Few 
of them are of the stature of my own Teacher; 
but there are many who make it their pleasure 
to help the souls of the newly arrived. They 
never leave a newcomer entirely to his own re- 
sources. Help is always offered, though it is 
not always accepted. In that case it will be of- 
fered again and again, for those who give them- 
selves to others do so without hope of reward 
or even acknowledgment. 

If I had set out to write a scientific treatise 
of the life on this side, I should have begun in 
quite a different way from this. In the first place, 
I should have postponed the labour about ten 



THE MAGIC RING II9 

years, until all my facts were pigeon-holed and 
docketed; then I should have begun at the begin- 
ning and dictated a book so dull that you would 
have fallen asleep over it, and I should have 
had to nudge you from time to time to pick up 
the pencil fallen from your somnolent hand. 

Instead, I began to write soon after coming 
out, and these letters are really the letters of a 
traveller in a strange country. They record his 
impressions, often his mistakes, sometimes per- 
haps his provincial prejudices; but at least they 
are not a rehash of what somebody else has said. 

I like your keeping my photograph on your 
mantel as you do; it helps me to come. There 
is a great power in a photograph. 

I have been drawing pictures for you lately 
on the canvas of dreams, to show you the futility 
and vanity of certain things. Did you not know 
that we could do that? The power of the so- 
called dead to influence the living is immense, 
provided that the tie of sympathy has been made. 
I have taught you how to protect yourself against 
influences which you do not want, so do not be 
afraid. I will always stand guard to the extent 
of warning you if there is any danger of attack 
from this side. Already I have drawn a magic 



;i20 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

ring around you which only the most advanced 
and powerful spirits could pass, even if they de- 
sired — that is, the Teachers and I drew it to- 
gether. You are doing our work just now, and 
have a right to our protection. That the labourer 
is worthy of his hire is an axiom of both worlds. 
Only you yourself could now let down the bars 
for the inrush of evil and irresponsible spiritual 
intelligences, and if you should inadvertently let 
down the bars we should rush to put them up 
again. We have some authority out here. Yes, 
even so soon I can say that. Are you surprised? 



LETTER XXVIII 

EXCEPT YE BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN 

IONCE heard a man refer to this world as 
the play world, "for," said he, "we are all 
children here, and we create the environment that 
we desire." As a child at play can turn a chair 
into a tower or a prancing steed, so we in this 
world can make real for the moment whatever 
we imagine. 

Has it never filled you with amazement, that 
absolute vividness of the imagination of children? 
A child says unblushingly and with conviction, 
"That rug is a garden, that plank in the floor 
is a river, that chair is a castle, and I am a king." 

Why does he say these things? How can he 
say these things? Because — and here is the point 
— he still subconsciously remembers the life out 
here which he so lately left. He has carried over 
with him into the life of earth something of his 
lost freedom and power of imagination. 

That does not mean that all things in this world 
are imaginary — far from it. Objects here, ob- 

121 



122 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

jects existing in tenuous matter, are as real and 
comparatively substantial as with you; but there 
is the possibility of creation here, creation in a 
form of matter even more subtle still — thought- 
substance. 

If you create something on earth in solid mat- 
ter, you create it first in thought-substance; but 
there is this difference between your creation and 
ours : until you have moulded solid matter around 
your thought-pattern you do not believe that the 
thought-pattern really exists save in your own 
fancy. 

We out here can see the thought-creations of 
others if we and they will it so. 

We can also — and I tell you this for your com- 
fort — we can also see your thought-creations, and 
by adding the strength of our will to yours we 
can help you to realise them in substantial form. 

Sometimes we build here bit by bit, in the four- 
dimensional world, especially when we wish to 
leave a thing for others to see and enjoy, when 
we wish a thing to survive for a long time. But 
a thought-form is visible to all highly developed 
spirits. 

Of course you understand that not all spirits 
are highly developed. In fact very few are far 
progressed; but the dullest man out here has 



EXCEPT YE BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN 1 23 

something which most of you have lost — the faith 
in his own thought-creations. 

Now, the power which makes creation possi- 
ble is not lost to a soul when it takes on solid mat- 
ter again. But the power is gradually overcome 
and the imagination is discouraged by the in- 
credulity of mature men and women, who say 
constantly to the child: "That is only play; that 
is not really so; that is only imagination." 

If you print these letters, I wish you would 
insert here fragments from that wonderful poem 
of Wordsworth, "Intimations of Immortality 
from Recollections of Early Childhood." 

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar: 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home: 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 

Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy; 



124 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

The Youth, who daily farther from the east 
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, 
And by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended ; 
At length the Man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day." 

There is almost no limit to the possibilities of 
the imagination; but to get the full power of it, 
one must trust one's imagination. If you say to 
yourself constantly, as the mother says to the 
child, "But this is only play; this is not real," you 
never can make real the things you have created 
in thought. 

The imagination itself is like a child and must 
be encouraged and believed in, or it cannot de- 
velop and do its perfect work. 

It is really fortunate for some of you that I 
am out here. I can do more for you here than 
there, because I have even greater faith in my 
imagination than I had before. 

The man who called this the play world has 
been trying all sorts of experiments with the 
power in himself. I have not his permission to 
tell the stories he tells me, but they would sur- 
prise you. For one thing, he helped his wife, 
after his so-called death, to carry out a joint plan 
of theirs which had seemed impossible to them 



EXCEPT YE BE AS LITTLE CHILDREN 1 25 

before because of their lack of real faith. It was 
for the erection of a certain kind of house. 

But do not fancy that most people here are 
trying to build houses on earth. Far from it. 
Most of my fellow-citizens are willing to work 
where they are, and to let the earth alone. Of 
course there are "dreamers" like me, who are 
not satisfied with one world, and who like to have 
their fingers in both; but they are rather rare, 
as poets are rare on earth. To most men the 
world they happen to be in is sufficient for the 
time being. 

There is a certain fancy of mine, however, 
which it will amuse me to help realise on earth. 
You may not know that I am doing it, but I shall 
know. I would not, "for the world," as you 
say, disturb anybody by even the thought that 
I am fussing around in affairs which now are 
theirs. But if, unseen and unfelt, I can help with 
the power of my self-confident imagination, there 
will be no harm done, and I shall have demon- 
strated something. 



LETTER XXIX 

AN UNEXPECTED WARNING 

I SHOULD be very sorry if the reading of 
these letters of mine should cause foolish 
and unthinking people to go spirit-hunting, in- 
viting into their human sphere the irresponsible 
and often lying elemental spirits. Tell them not 
to do it. 

My coming in this way through your hand is 
quite another matter. I could not do it if I had 
not been instructed in the scientific method of 
procedure, and I also could not do it if you should 
constantly interrupt me by side-thoughts of your 
own, and by questions relevant or irrelevant. It 
is because you are perfectly passive and not even 
curious, letting me use your hand as on earth I 
would have used the hand of my stenographer, 
that I am able to write long and connected sen- 
tences. 

Most spirit communications, even when genu- 
ine, have little value, for the reason that they 

126 



AN UNEXPECTED WARNING 1 27 

are nearly always coloured by the mind of the 
person through whom they pass. 

You are right in reading nothing on the sub- 
ject while these messages are coming, and in 
thinking nothing about this plane of life where 
I am. Thus you avoid preconceived ideas, which 
would interrupt the flow of my ideas. 

You know, perhaps, that while on earth I in- 
vestigated -spiritualism, as I investigated many 
things of an occult nature, looking always for 
the truth that was behind them ; but I was con- 
vinced then, and I am now more than ever con- 
vinced, that, except for the scientific demonstra- 
tion that such things can be — which, of course, 
has value as a demonstration only, — most spirit- 
hunting is not only a waste of time, but an abso- 
lute detriment to those who engage in it. 

This may sound strange coming from a so- 
called "spirit," one who is actually at this time 
in communication with the world. If that is so, 
I cannot help it. If I seem inconsistent, then I 
seem so; that is all. But I wish to go on record 
as discouraging irresponsible mediumship. 

If a person sitting for mediumship could be 
sure that at the other end of the psychic line there 
was an entity who had something sincere and im- 
portant to say, and who really could use him or 



128 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

her to say it through, it would be another mat- 
ter; but this world out here is full of vagrants, 
even as the earth. As this world is peopled 
largely from your world, it is inevitable that we 
have the same kind of beings that you have. 
They have not changed much in passing through 
the doors of death. 

Would you advise any delicate and sensitive 
woman to sit down in the centre of Hyde Park, 
and invite the passing crowds to come and speak 
through her, or touch her, or mingle their mag- 
netism with hers? You shudder. You would 
shudder more had you seen some of the things 
which I have seen. 

Then, too, there is another class of beings here, 
the kind which we used to hear the Theosophists 
call elementals. Now, there has been a lot of 
nonsense written about elementals; but take this 
for a fact: there are units of energy, units of 
consciousness, which correspond pretty closely to 
what the Theosophists understand by elementals. 
These entities are not, as a rule, very highly de- 
veloped; but as the stage of earth life is the stage 
to which they aspire, and as it is the next in- 
evitable stage in their evolution, they are drawn 
to it powerfully. 

So do not be too sure that the entity which 



AN UNEXPECTED WARNING 1 29 

raps on your table or your cupboard is the spirit 
of your deceased grandfather. It may be merely 
a blind and very desirous entity, an eager con- 
sciousness, trying to use you to hasten its own 
evolution, trying to get into you or through you, 
so as to enjoy the earth and the coarser vibra- 
tions of the earth. 

It may not be able to harm you, but, on the 
other hand, it may do you a great deal of harm. 
You had better discourage such attempts to break 
through the veil which separates you from them; 
for the veil is thinner than you think, and though 
you cannot see through it, you can feel through it. 

Having said this, my duty in the matter is dis- 
charged; and the next time I come I can tell you 
a story, maybe, instead of giving you a lecture. 

I really feel like an astral Scheherazade; but I 
fear you would tire of me before a thousand-and- 
one nights were past. A thousand-and-one nights ! 
Before that time I shall have gone on. No, I do 
not mean "died" again into another world be- 
yond; but when I get through telling you what 
I desire you to know about my life here, I want 
to investigate other stars, if it shall be permitted. 

I am like a young man who has lately inherited 
a fortune and has at last unlimited means and 
opportunity for travel. Though he might stay 



130 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

around home a few months, getting matters in 
shape and becoming adjusted to his new freedom 
of movement, yet the time would come when he 
would want to try his wings. I hope that is not 
a mixed metaphor; if so, you can edit me. I shall 
not feel hurt. 



LETTER XXX 

THE SYLPH AND THE MAGICIAN 

IF your eyes could pierce the veil of matter, 
and you could see what goes on in the tenu- 
ous world around and above that city of Paris, 
you would gasp with wonder. I have spent much 
time in Paris lately. Shall I tell you some of the 
strange things I have seen? 

In a street on the left bank of the river, called 
the rue de Vaugirard, there lives a man of middle 
age and sedentary habits who is a sort of ma- 
gician. He is constantly attended and served by 
one of the elemental spirits known as sylphs. 
This sylph he calls Meriline. I do not know from 
what language he got the name, for he seems 
to speak several, and to know Hebrew. I have 
seen this Meriline coming and going to and from 
his apartment. No, it would not be right for me 
to tell you where it is. The man could be iden- 
tified, though the sylph would elude the census- 
taker. 

131 



132 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

Meriline does not make his bed or cook his 
broth, for which humble service he has a char- 
woman ; but the sylph runs errands and discovers 
things for him. He is a collector of old books 
and manuscripts, and many of his treasures have 
been located by Meriline in the stalls which lie 
along the banks of the Seine, and also in more 
pretentious bookshops. 

This man is not a devil-worshipper. He is 
only a harmless enthusiast, fond of occult things, 
and striving to pierce the veil which shuts the 
elemental world from his eyes. A little less brandy 
and wine, and he might be able to see clearly, for 
he is a true student. But he is fond of the flesh, 
and it preys upon the spirit. 

One day I encountered Meriline going upon 
one of his errands, and I introduced myself by 
signalling with my hands and calling my name. 
This attracted the attention of the sprite, who 
came and stood beside me. 

"Where are you going ?" I asked; and she 
nodded towards the other side of the river. 

The thought came to me that perhaps I ought 
not to question this servant of the good magician 
as to her master's business, so I hesitated. She 
also hesitated; then she said: 

"But he is interested in the spirits of men." 



THE SYLPH AND THE MAGICIAN 1 33 

This made the matter simpler, and I asked: 
"You do his errands ?" 
"Yes, always." 

"Why do you do his errands?" 
"Because I love to serve him." 
"And why do you love to serve him?" 
"Because I belong to him." 
"I thought every soul belonged to itself." 
"But I am not a soul!" 
"Then what are you?" 
"A sylph." 

"Do you ever expect to be a soul?" 
"Oh, yes! He has promised that I shall be, if 
I serve him faithfully." 

"But how can he make you to be a soul?" 

"I don't know; but he will." 

"How do you know that he will?" 

"Because I trust him." 

"What makes you trust him?" 

"Because he trusts me." 

"And you always tell him the truth?" 

"Always." 

"Who taught you what truth is?" 

"He did." 

"How?" 

This seemed to puzzle the being before me, 



IJ4 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

and I feared she would go away; so I detained 
her by saying, quickly: 

"I do not want to worry you with questions 
which you cannot answer. Tell me how you first 
came into his service." 

"Ought I?" 

"So you have a conscience?" 

"Yes, he taught me to have." 

"But you say that he is interested in the spirits 
of men." 

"Yes, and I also know good spirits from bad 



ones." 



"Did he teach you that?" 

"No." 

"How did you learn?" 

"I always knew." 

"Then you have lived a long time?" 

"Oh, yes!" 

"And when do you expect to have, or to become 
a soul?" 

"When he comes out here, into this world 
where we are." 

This staggered me by its daring. Had the 
good magician been deceiving his sylph, or did 
he really believe what he promised? 

"What did he say about it?" I asked. 



THE SYLPH AND THE MAGICIAN 135 

"That if I would serve him now, he would 
serve me later." 

"And how is he going to do it?" 

"I don't know." 

"Suppose you ask him?" 

"I never ask questions. I answer them." 

"For instance, what sort of questions?" 

"I tell him where such and such a person is, 
and what he or she is doing." 

"Can you tell him what these people are think- 
ing?" 

"Not often — or not always. Sometimes I 
can. 

"How can you tell?" 

"By the feel of them. If I am warm in their 
presence, I know they are friendly to him; if I 
am cold, I know they are his enemies. If I feel 
nothing at all, then I know that they are not 
thinking of him, or are indifferent." 

"And your errand this evening?" 

"To see a lady." 

"And you are not jealous?" 

"What is 'jealous'?" 

"You are not displeased that he should in- 
terest himself in ladies?" 

"Why should I be?" 

This was a question I could not answer, not 



136 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

knowing the nature of sylphs. She surprised me 
"a little, for I had supposed that all female things 
were jealous. But, fearing again that she might 
leave me, I hurried to question her further. 

"How did you make his acquaintance?" I 
asked. 

"He called me." 

"How?" 

"By the incantation." 

"What incantation?" 

"The call of the sylphs." 

"Oh," I said, "he called the sylphs and you 
came!" 

"Yes, of course. I liked him for his kindness, 
and I made him see me." 

"How did you manage it?" 

"I dazzled his eyes until he closed them, and 
then he could see me." 

"Can he always see you now?" 

"No, but he knows I am there." 

"He can see you sometimes still?" 

"Yes, often." 

"And when he saw you first?" 

"He was delighted, and called me loving 
names, and made me promises." 

"The promise of a soul— that first time?" 

"Yes." 



THE SYLPH AND THE MAGICIAN 137 

"Then you had wanted to have a soul?" 

"Oh, yes!" 

"But why?" 

"Many of us want to be men. We love men 
— that is, most of us do." 

"Why do you love men?" 

"It is our nature." 

"But not the nature of all of you?" 

"There are malignant spirits of the air." 

"And what will you do when you have a soul?" 

"I will take a body, and live on earth." 

"And leave your friend whom you now serve?" 

"Oh, no! It is to be with him that I specially 
want a body." 

"Then will he come back to the earth with 
you?" 

"He says so." 

This again staggered me. I was becoming in- 
terested in this magician; he had a daring imagi- 
nation. 

Could a spirit of the air develop into a hu- 
man soul? I asked myself. Was the man self- 
deceived? Or, again, was he deceiving his lovely 
messenger? 

I thought a little too long this time, for when 
I turned again to speak to my strange companion, 
she had left me. I tried to follow, but could 



138 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

not find her; and if she returned soon, it must 
have been by some other road. Though I looked 
in all directions, she was invisible to me. 

Now, the question will arise in your mind: In 
what language did I talk with this aerial servant 
of a French magician? I seemed to speak in my 
own tongue, and she seemed to respond in the 
same. How is that? I cannot say, unless we 
really used the subtle language of thought itself. 

You may often, on meeting with a person 
whose language you do not speak, feel an inter- 
change of ideas, by the look of the eyes, by the 
expression of the face, by gestures. Now im- 
agine that, intensified a hundredfold. Might it 
not extend to the simple questions and answers 
which I exchanged with the sylph? I do not 
say that it would, but I think it might; for, as I 
said before, I seemed to speak and she seemed 
to reply in my own language. 

What strange experiences one has out here! 
I rather dread to go back into the world, where 
it will be so dull for me for a long time. Can 
I exchange this freedom and vivid life for a long 
period of somnolence, afterwards to suck a bot- 
tle and learn the multiplication table and Greek 
and Latin verbs ? I suppose I must— ?but not yet. 

Good night. 



LETTER XXXI 

A PROBLEM IN CELESTIAL MATHEMATICS 

BY the vividness with which you feel my pres- 
ence at times, you can judge of the intensity 
of the life that I am living. I am no pallid spook, 
dripping with grave-dew. I am real, and quite as 
wholesome — or so it seems to me — as when I 
walked the earth in a more or less unhealthy 
body. The ghastly spectres, when they return, do 
not talk as I talk. Ask those who have seen and 
heard them. 

It is well that you have kept yourself com- 
paratively free of communications "from the 
other world." 

It would have been amazing had you been 
afraid of me. But there are those who would 
be, if they should sense my presence as you sense 
it. 

One night I knocked at the door of a friend's 
chamber, half expecting a welcome. He jumped 

i39 



140 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

out of bed in alarm, then jumped back again, 
and pulled the blanket over his head. He was 
really afraid that it might be I ! So, as I did not 
wish to be responsible for a case of heart failure, 
or for a shock of hair which, like that in the old 
song, "turned white in a single night," I went 
quietly away. Doubtless he persuaded himself 
next day that there were mice in the wainscot- 
ting. 

Had you been afraid of me, though, I should 
have been ashamed of you; for you know better. 
Most persons do not. 

It is a real pleasure for me to come back and 
talk with you sometimes. "There are no friends 
like the old friends," and the society of sylphs 
and spirits would never quite satisfy me if all 
those whom I had known and loved should turn 
their backs on me. 

Speaking of sylphs, I met the TeacheT last 
night, and asked him if that French magician 
I told you about could really make good his prom- 
ise to his aerial companion, and help her to ac- 
quire the kind of soul essential to incarnation on 
earth as a woman. His answer was, "No." 

Of course I asked him why, and he answered 
that the elemental creatures, or units of force 
inhabiting the elements, as we use that term, could 



A PROBLEM IN CELESTIAL MATHEMATICS 141 

oot, during this life cycle, step out of their ele- 
ment into the human. 

"Can they ever do so?" I asked. 

"I do not know," he replied; "but I believe 
that all the less evolved units around the earth 
are working in the direction of man; that the 
human is a stage of development which they will 
all reach some day, but not in this life cycle." 

I asked the Teacher if he knew the magician 
in question, and he answered that he had known 
him for a thousand years, that long ago, in a 
former life, the Paris magician had placed his feet 
upon the path which leads to power; but that 
he had been side-tracked by the desire for sel- 
fish pleasures, and that he might wander a long 
time before he found his way back to real and 
philosophical truth. 

"Is he to be blamed or pitied?" I asked. 

"Pity cuts no figure in the problem," the 
Teacher replied. "A man seeks what he de- 
sires. 

After the Teacher went away I began asking 
myself questions. What was / seeking, and what 
did I desire? The answer came quickly: "Knowl- 
edge." A year ago I might have answered 
"Power," but knowledge is the forerunner of 



142 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

power. If I get true knowledge, I shall have 
power enough. 

It is because I want to give to you, and pos- 
sibly to others, a few scraps of knowledge which 
might be inaccessible to you by any other means, 
that I am coming back, and coming back, time 
after time, to talk with you. 

The greatest bit of knowledge that I have to 
offer you is this: that by the exercise of will a 
man can retain his objective consciousness after 
death. Many persons out here sink into a sort 
of subjective bliss which makes them indifferent 
as to what is going on upon the earth or in the 
heavens. I could do so myself, easily. 

As I believe I have said before, while man on 
earth has both subjective and objective conscious- 
ness, but functions mostly in the objective, out 
here he has still subjective and objective conscious- 
ness, but the tendency is towards the subjective. 

At almost any time, on composing yourself and 
looking in, you can fall into a state of subjective 
bliss which is similar to that enjoyed by souls on 
this side of the dividing line called death. In 
fact, it is by such subconscious experience that 
man has learned nearly all he knows regarding 
the etheric world. When the storms and passions 
of the body are stilled, man can catch a glimpse 



A PROBLEM IN CELESTIAL MATHEMATICS 143 

of his own interior life, and that interior life is 
the life of this fourth-dimensional plane. Please 
do not accuse me of contradicting myself or of 
being obscure; I have said that the objective con- 
sciousness is as possible with us as the subjective 
is with you, but that the tendency is merely the 
other way. 

You may remember a pair of lovers about 
whom I wrote you a few weeks ago. He had 
been out here some time, and had waited for her, 
and helped her over the uncertain marsh-lands 
which lie between the two states of existence. 

I saw these lovers again the other day, but 
they were not at all excited by my appearance. 
On the contrary, I fancy that I put them out 
somewhat by awakening them, by calling them 
back from the state of subjective bliss into which 
they have sunk since being together at last. 

While he waited for her all those years, he 
kept himself awake by expectation; while still on 
earth she was always thinking of him out here, 
and so the polarity was sustained. Now they 
have each other; they are in "the little home" 
which he built for her with so much pleasure out 
of the tenuous materials of this tenuous world; 
they see each other's faces whether they look out 



144 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

or in; they are content; they have nothing more 
to attain (or so they tell each other), and they 
consequently sink back into the arms of subjec- 
tive bliss. 

Now this state of bliss, of rumination, they 
have a right to enjoy. No one can take it from 
them. They have earned it by activity in the 
world and elsewhere, it is theirs by rhythmic jus- 
tice. They will enjoy it, I fancy, for a long time, 
living over the past experiences which they have 
had together and apart. Then some day one or 
the other of them will become surfeited with too 
much sweetness; the muscles of his (or her) soul 
will stretch for want of exercise; he (or she) 
will give a spiritual yawn, and by the law of re- 
action, pass out — not to return. 

Where will he (or she) go, you ask? Why, 
back to the earth, of course! 

Let us imagine him (or her) awaking from 
that subjective state of bliss which is known to 
them as attainment, and going for a short prome- 
nade in blessed and wholesome solitude. Then, 
with a sort of morning alertness in the heart and 
the eye, he (or she) draws near to a pair of 
earthly lovers. Suddenly the call of matter, the 
eager, terrible call of blood and warmth, of ac- 
tivity raised to the nth power, catches the half- 



A PROBLEM IN CELESTIAL MATHEMATICS 145 

awakened soul on the ethereal side of matter, 
and 

He has again entered the world of material 
formation. He is sunk and hidden in the flesh 
of earth. He awaits birth. He will come out 
with great force, by reason of his former rest. 
He might even become a "captain of industry," 
if he is a strong unit. But I began by saying "he 
or she." Let me change the figure. The man 
would be almost certain to awake first, by reason 
of his positive polarity. 

Now, in drawing this imaginary picture of my 
lovers, I am not making a dogma of the way in 
which all souls return to earth. I am merely 
guessing how these two will return (for she would 
probably follow him speedily when she awoke and 
found herself alone). And the reason why I 
fancy they will return in that way is because they 
are indulging themselves in too much subjective 
bliss. 

When will they go back? I cannot say. Per- 
haps next year, perhaps in a hundred years. Not 
knowing the numerical value of their unit of 
force, I cannot guess how much subjective bliss 
they can endure without a violent reaction. 

I am sure that you are wondering if some day 



146 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

I shall myself sink into that state of bliss which 
I have described. Perhaps. I should enjoy it — 
but not for long, and not yet. However, I have 
no sweetheart out here to enjoy it with me. 



LETTER XXXII 

A CHANGE OF FOCUS 

WITH the guidance of the Teacher, during 
the last few weeks I have been going to 
and fro in the earth and walking up and down 
in it. You smile at the veiled reference. But 
have not certain friends of yours actually feared 
me, as if I were the devil of the Book of Job? 

Now, to be serious, I have been visiting those 
lands and cities where in former lives I lived and 
worked among men. One of the many advan- 
tages of travel is that it helps a man to remem- 
ber his former existences. There is certainly a 
magic in places. 

I have been in Egypt, in India, in Persia, in 
Spain, in Italy; I have been in Germany, Switzer- 
land, Austria, Greece, Turkey, and many other 
lands. The Dardanelles were not closed to me 
recently, when by reason of the war you could 
not have passed through. There are advantages 
to almost every condition, even my present one; 
for the law of compensation holds good. 

147 



I48 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

In certain lives of the past I was a wide travel- 
ler. 

Now you may wonder how it is that I pass 
easily from this world to yours, seeing into both. 
But you must remember that your world and mine 
occupy about the same space; that the plane of 
the earth's surface is one of the lower and more 
material planes of our world, using the word 
"plane" as you would use the word "layer." 

As I have said before, there are also places ac- 
cessible to us which lie at some distance above 
the earth's surface. "Mansions in the skies" are 
more than figurative. 

I have only slightly to change my focus at any 
time, to find myself in your world. That I can- 
not be seen there with the naked eye is no proof 
that I am not there. Without that change of 
focus, which is done through an action of will 
and by knowing the method, I might even be oc- 
cupying the same space as something in your 
world and not know it. Note well this point, 
for it is only half of something which I have to 
say. The other half is, that you also may at any 
time be — so far as space is concerned — in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood of interesting things in 
our world, and not know that you are there. 

But if you focus to this world you are more 



A CHANGE OF FOCUS I49 

or less conscious of it. So when I, knowing how, 
focus to your world, I am there in consciousness 
and can enjoy the varied sights of many cities, 
the changing aspects of many lands. 

When I first came out I could not see my way 
about the earth very well, but now I can see bet- 
ter. 

No, I am not going to give you a formula to 
give to other people by which you or they could 
change focus at will and enter into relation with 
this world, because such knowledge at the pres- 
ent stage of human progress would do more harm 
than good. I merely state the fact, and leave 
the application for those who have the curiosity 
and the ability to demonstrate it. 

My object in writing these letters is primarily 
to convince a few persons — to strengthen their 
certainty in the fact of immortality, or the sur- 
vival of the soul after the bodily change which 
is called death. Many think they believe who 
are not certain whether they believe or not. If 
I can make my presence as a living and vital en- 
tity felt in these letters, it will have the effect 
of strengthening the belief of certain persons in 
the doctrine of immortality. 

This is a materialistic age. A large percentage 
of men and women have no real interest in the 



I50 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

life beyond the grave. But they will all have to 
come out here sooner or later, and perhaps a 
few will find the change easier, the journey less 
formidable, by reason of what I shall have taught 
them. Is it not worth while? Is it not worth 
a little effort on your part as well as on mine? 

Any person approaching the great change who 
shall seriously study these letters and lay their 
principles to heart, and who shall will to remem- 
ber them after passing out, need not fear any- 
thing. 

We all fail in much that we undertake, but I 
hope I shall not fail in this. Do not you fail on 
your side. I could not do this work without you, 
nor could you do it without me. That is in an- 
swer to the supposition that I am your subcon- 
scious mind. 

I have been in Constantinople and have stood 
in the very room where I once had a remarkable 
experience, hundreds of years ago. I have seen 
the walls, I have touched them, I have read the 
etheric records of their history, and my own his- 
tory in connection therewith. 

I have walked the rose-gardens of Persia and 
have smelled the flowers — the grandchildren, 
hundreds of times removed, of those roses whose 



A CHANGE OF FOCUS 151 

fragrance was an ecstasy to me when, watching 
with the bulbul, I paced there in another form 
and with intentions different to mine now. It was 
the perfume of the roses which made me remem- 
ber. 

In Greece also I have lived over the old days. 
Before their degeneration began, what a race 
they were! I think that concentration was the 
secret of their power. The ether around that 
peninsula is written over with their exploits, in 
daring thought as well as daring action. The 
old etheric records are so vivid that they shine 
through the later writings; for you must know 
that what are called astral records lie layer 
against layer everywhere. We read one layer 
instead of another, either by affinity or by will. 
It is no more strange than that a man may go 
among the millions of volumes in the British Mu- 
seum and select the one he wants. The most 
marvellous things are always simple of explana- 
tion if one has the key to unlock their secret. 

There has been much nonsense written about 
vibration, but nevertheless truth lies thereabouts. 
Where there is so much smoke there must be 
fire. 

In India I have met with yogis in meditation. 
Do you know why their peculiar way of breath- 



152 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

ing produces psychic results? No, you do not. 
Now let me tell you : By holding the breath long 
a certain — shall I say poison? — is produced in 
the body, which poison, acting on the psychic na- 
ture, changes the vibration. That is all. Vol- 
umes have been written about yoga, but have any 
of them said that? The untrained healthy lungs, 
in the ordinary operation, get rid of this poison 
by processes well known to physiologists, — that 
is, in the natural man, adjusted to and working 
contentedly on the material plane. But in order 
for a man still living on the material plane to be- 
come adjusted to the psychic world, a change of 
vibration is necessary. This change of vibration 
may be produced by a slight overdose of the 
above-mentioned poison. Is it dangerous? Yes, 
to the ignorant. To those who are learned in 
its use it is no more dangerous than most of the 
drugs in the pharmacopoeia. 

Another time I will tell you about other secrets 
which I have discovered going to and fro in the 
earth and walking up and down in it. 



LETTER XXXIII 



FIVE RESOLUTIONS 



I HAVE stood at night on the roof of an 
Oriental palace and watched the stars. You 
who can see into the invisible world by changing 
your focus, can easily understand how I, by a 
reverse process, can see into the world of dense 
matter. Yes, it is the same thing, only turned 
the other way. 

I stood on the roof of an Oriental palace and 
watched the stars. No mortal was near me. 
Looking down upon the sleeping city, I have seen 
the cloud of souls which kept watch above it, have 
seen the messengers coming and going. Once 
or twice a wan, half-frightened face appeared 
among the cloud of spirits, and I knew that down 
below in the city someone had died. 

But I had seen so many spirits since coming 
out here that I was more interested in watching 
the stars. I used to love them, and I love them 

153 



154 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

still. Some day, if it is permitted, I hope to 
know more about them. But I shall not leave 
the neighbourhood of the earth until these let- 
ters are finished. From the distance of the planet 
Jupiter I might not be able to write at all. It 
is true that one can come and go, almost with 
the quickness of thought; but something tells me 
that it is better to postpone for a time my 
more extensive travelling. Perhaps when I get 
out there I shall not want to come back for a long 
time. 

It means much to me this correspondence with 
earth. During my illness I used to wonder if I 
could come back sometimes, but I never imagined 
anything like this. I would not have supposed 
it possible to find any well-balanced and respon- 
sible person with daring enough to join me in the 
experiment. 

I could not have written through the hand 
of a person of untrained mind unless he or she 
had been fully hypnotised. I could not have writ- 
ten through the hand of the average intellectual 
person, because such persons cannot make them- 
selves sufficiently passive. 

Be at peace. You are not a spirit medium, 
using the word as it is commonly used, signifying 
a passive instrument, an aeolian harp, set in an 



FIVE RESOLUTIONS 155 

aperture between the two worlds and played upon 
by any wind that blows. 

Except as illustrating the fact that it can be 
done, there is no great object in my telling you of 
the things I have seen in your world since com- 
ing to this other one. The next time you look 
out into this plane of life and see the wonder- 
ful landscapes and the people, remember that 
it is in a similar way that I look back into your 
plane of existence. It is interesting to live in two 
worlds, going back and forth at will. But when 
I go into yours it is only as a visitor, and I shall 
never attempt to take a hand in its government. 
There is such a rigorous custom-house on the 
frontier between the two worlds that the traveller 
back and forth cannot afford to carry anything 
with him — not even a prejudice. 

If you should come out here with a determina- 
tion to see only certain things, you might give a 
wrong value to what you would see. Many have 
come out here at death with that mental attitude, 
and so have learned little or nothing. It is the 
traveller with the open mind who makes discov- 
eries. 

I brought over with me only a few resolutions : 

To preserve my identity; 



I56 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

To hold my memory of earth life, and to carry 
back the memory of this life when I should re- 
turn to the world; 

To see the great Teachers; 

To recover the memories of my past incarna- 
tions ; 

To lay the necessary foundations for a great 
earth life when I should go back next time. 

That sounds simple, does it not? Already I 
have done much besides; but if I had not borne 
these points in mind I might have accomplished 
little. 

The only really sad thing about death is that 
the average man learns so little from it. Only 
my realisation of the fact that the chain of earth 
lives is relatively endless could keep me from re- 
gret that most persons make so little progress in 
each life. But I comfort myself with the as- 
surance that there is no hurry; that the pearls 
in the chain of existence, though small, are all 
in their inevitable places, and that the chain is 
a circle, the symbol of eternity. 

And it seems to me, with my still finite view, 
that most men on this side waste their lives even 
as they do on your side. That shows how far I 
am yet from the ideal knowledge. 

Viewed from the stars, whence I hope some 



FIVE RESOLUTIONS 1 57 

day to view them, all these flat stretches in the 
landscape of life may be softened by distance, 
and the whole picture may take on a perspective 
of beauty which I had not dreamed of while I 
myself was but a speck upon the canvas. 



LETTER XXXIV 

THE PASSING OF LIONEL 

1HAVE lost my boy Lionel. He has gone — 
I started to say the way of all flesh; but I 
must revise the figure and say the way of all 
spirits, sooner or later, and that way is back to 
the earth. 

One day not long ago I found him absorbed 
in thought in our favourite resting-place, the lit- 
tle hut beside a stream at the foot of a wooded 
hill, which I told you about in one of my for- 
mer letters. 

I waited for a time until the boy opened his 
eyes and looked at me. 

"Father," he said, u my favourite teacher is 
going to be married to-morrow." 

"How do you know?" I asked. 

"Why, I have been listening!" he answered. 
"Every little while I go back and pay her a visit, 
though she does not know I am there. I have 
been aware that there was something in the wind." 

"Why?" 

158 



THE PASSING OF LIONEL 1 59 

"Because she has been so shining; there is a 
light around her which was not there before." 

"What caused the light, Lionel ?" 

"Well, I suppose she is what they call in love." 

"You are a phenomenally wise child," I said. 

He looked at me with his large, honest eyes. 

"I am not really a child at all," he answered. 
"I am as old as the hills, as you, or as anybody. 
Have you not told me that we are all immortal, 
without end or beginning?" 

"Yes, but go on, tell me about your teacher." 

"She is in love with the big brother of one of 
my playfellows. I used to know him when I was 
a little boy. He let me use his magnet, and taught 
me kite-flying, and showed me how machinery 
went. He is an engineer." 

"Oh!" I said. "In this case, of course, you are 
glad that your favourite teacher is going to marry 
him." 

Lionel's eyes were larger than ever as he said : 

"I shall be sorry to leave you, Father; but it 
is a chance I cannot afford to miss." 

"What!" 

"It is my opportunity to go back. IVe been 
watching for it a long time." 

"But are you ready?" 

"What is it to be ready? I want to go." 



l60 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"And leave me?" 

"I shall find you again. And — Oh, Father! — 
when you come back I shall be older than you." 
This idea seemed to delight him. 

I was still human enough to be sorry that the 
boy was going of his own free will ; but as will is 
free, I would not make any effort to detain him. 
Though young in that form, which had not yet 
had time to grow up in the tenuous world since 
he came out as a child, yet he was old in thought. 

"Yes," I said, "perhaps you can help me along 
when I also shall be- a child again." 

"You see," he went on, "with a father like 
Victor I shall learn all I want to know about ma- 
chinery — that is, all that he can teach me; but 
when I am grown I shall find out for myself many 
things which he does not know. You remember 
the little machine I have been working with, up 
in the pattern world?" 

"Yes." 

"When I am back on the earth I shall make 
it a reality. Why, it actually runs now with the 
electricity from my fingers!" 

"But will it, when you have fixed it in material 
form, in steel, or whatever it is to be made of?" 

"Yes, of course it will. It is my invention. I 
shall be a famous man." 



THE PASSING OF LIONEL l6l 

"But supposing that somebody else finds it 
first?" 

"I don't think anybody will." 

"Shall I help you to lay a spell around the pat- 
tern, so that no one can touch it?" 

"Could you do that, Father?" 

"I think so." 

"Then let us go up there at once," he said, 
"and do it immediately. I may have to leave this 
world in a day or two." 

I could not help smiling at the boy's desire to 
hurry. Doubtless he would be present at that 
wedding, and I should see little or nothing of him 
afterwards. 

We went up to the pattern world, and with his 
assistance I drew a circle around the little ma- 
chine — a spell which, I think, will protect it until 
he is ready to make his claim. 

Oh inspiration! Oh invention! Genius! Lit- 
tle do the men of earth know the meaning of those 
words. Perhaps the poet's famous poem was 
sung before his birth; perhaps the engineer's in- 
vention lay in the pattern world, protected by 
his spell, while he grew to manhood and advanced 
in science and made ready to claim it for his own, 
his prior and spiritual creation. Perhaps, when 
two men discover or invent the same thing at 



1 62 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

about the same time, one has succeeded in appro- 
priating the design which the other left behind 
him when he came back to earth. Sometimes, 
perhaps, both have taken from the invisible the 
creation of a third man, who still awaits rebirth. 

Lionel babbled on to me about the life to come, 

and of what a charming mother Miss would 

be. She had always been good to him. 

"Perhaps," I said, "many of us who return al- 
most immediately, as you hope to do, seek out 
those who have been good to us in a former 
life." 

"There is another point," Lionel said. "Miss 

is a friend of my own mother, the one I 

left a few years ago. It will be so good to have 
her hold my hand again." 

"Do you think she will recognise you?" I asked. 

"Who knows? She believes in rebirth." 

"How can you say that? You were so little 
when you came out!" 

"I was seven years old, and already she had 
told me that we live many lives on earth." 

"Bless the souls who first brought that belief 
to the Western world!" I exclaimed. "And now, 
my boy, is there anything that I can do for you 
after you leave me?" 



THE PASSING OF LIONEL 1 63 

"Yes, of course; you can watch over my new 
mother, and warn her if any danger threatens 
her or me." 

"Then make me acquainted with her now." 
We went out into the material world, the 
boy and I. Already I have told you how we 

go- 
He took me to a little house in one of the sub- 
urbs of Boston. We entered a room — it was 
then about eleven o'clock at night upon that part 
of the earth, — and I saw a fair young woman 
kneeling beside her bed, praying to God that He 
would bless the union of the morrow which was 
to give her to the man she loved. 

Lionel went close to her and threw his arms 
about her neck. 

She started, as if she actually felt the contact, 
and sprang to her feet. 

"Miss , Miss , don't you know me?" 

he cried; but while I could hear him, she evi- 
dently could not, though she looked about her 
in a half-frightened way. 

Then, supposing that the touch and the pres- 
ence she had felt were imaginary, she again fell 
upon her knees and went on with her interrupted 
prayer. 



164 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"Come away," I said to the boy; and we left 
her there with her dreams and her devotions. 

That was the last I saw of Lionel. He bade 
me good-bye, saying: 

"I shall stay near her for a few days. Per- 
haps I shall go back and forth, from her to you ; 
but if I do not return, I will meet you again in 
a few years." 

"Yes," I said, "it is affinity and desire which 
draw souls together, either on earth or in the 
other world." 

When next I met the Teacher I told him about 
Lionel, and asked him if he thought the boy could 
come out to me now and then, after his life on 
earth had begun, as an unborn entity in the shel- 
ter of his mother's form. 

"Probably not," he replied. "If he were an 
adept soul, he might do that; but with a soul of 
even high development, lacking real adeptship, it 
would be impossible." 

"Yet," I said, "men living on earth do come 
out here in dreams." 

"Yes, but when the soul enters matter, pre- 
paring for rebirth, it enters potentiality, if we 
may use the term, and all its strength is needed 
in the herculean effort to form the new body and 



THE PASSING OF LIONEL 1 65 

adjust to it. After birth, -when the eyes are 
opened, and the lungs are expanded to the air, 
the task is easier, and there may be left enough 
unused energy to bridge the gulf. 

"But," he went on, "those who are soon to 
be mothers are often vaguely conscious of the 
souls they harbour. Even when they do not grasp 
the full significance of the miracle that is being 
performed through them, they have strange 
dreams and visions, which are mostly glimpses 
into the past incarnations of the unborn child. 
They see dream countries where the entity within 
has dwelt in the past ; they feel desires which they 
cannot explain — reflected desires which are mere- 
ly the latent yearnings of the unborn one; they 
experience groundless fears which are its former 
dreads and terrors. The mother who nourishes 
a truly great soul, during this period of for- 
mation may herself grow spiritually beyond her 
own unaided possibility; while the mother of 
an unborn criminal often develops strange 
perversities, quite unlike her normal state of 
mind. 

"If a woman were sufficiently intelligent and 
informed, she could judge from her own feel- 
ings and ideas what sort of soul was to be her 
child some day, and prepare to guide it accord- 



1 66 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

ingly. More knowledge is needed, here as else- 
where.' ' 

So, as in all my experiences, I learned some- 
thing through the passing out of Lionel. 



LETTER XXXV 



THE BEAUTIFUL BEING 



YES, I have seen angels, if by angels you mean 
spiritual beings who have never dwelt as 
men upon the earth. 

As a man is to a rock, so is an angel to a man 
in vividness of life. If we ever experienced that 
state of etheric joy, we have lost it through long 
association with matter. Can we ever regain 
it? Perhaps. The event is in our hand. 

Shall I tell you of one whom I call the Beauti- 
ful Being? If it has a name in heaven, I have 
not heard it. Is the Beautiful Being man or 
woman? Sometimes it seems to be one, some- 
times the other. There is a mystery here which 
I cannot fathom. 

One night I seemed to be reclining upon a 
moonbeam, which means that the poet which 
dwells in all men was awake in me. I seemed 
to be reclining upon a moonbeam, and ecstasy 
filled my heart. For the moment I had escaped 

167 



1 68 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

the clutches of Time, and was living in that etheric 
quietude which is merely the activity of rapture 
raised to the last degree. I must have been en- 
joying a foretaste of that paradoxical state which 
the wise ones of the East call Nirvana. 

I was vividly conscious of the moonbeam and 
of myself, and in myself seemed to be everything 
else in the universe. It was the nearest I ever 
came to a realisation of that supreme declara- 
tion, "I am." 

The past and the future seemed equally present 
in the moment. Had a voice whispered that it 
was yesterday, I should have acquiesced in the 
assertion; had I been told that it was a million 
years hence, I should have been also assentive. 
But whether it was really yesterday or a million 
years hence mattered not in the least. Perhaps 
the Beautiful Being only comes to those for whom 
the moment and eternity are one. I heard a voice 
say: 

"Brother, it is I." 

There was no question in my mind as to who 
had spoken. "It is I" can only be uttered in such 
a voice by one whose individuality is so vast as 
to be almost universal, one who has dipped in 
the ocean of the All, yet who knows the minute 
by reason of its own inclusiveness. 



THE BEAUTIFUL BEING 1 69 

Standing before me was the Beautiful Being, 
radiant in its own light. Had it been less lovely 
I might have gasped with wonder; but the very 
perfection of its form and presence diffused an 
atmosphere of calm. I marvelled not, because 
the state of my consciousness was marvel. I was 
lifted so far above the commonplace that I had 
no standard by which to measure the experience 
of that moment. 

Imagine youth immortalised, the fleeting made 
eternal. Imagine the bloom of a child's face and 
the eyes of the ages of knowledge. Imagine the 
brilliancy of a thousand lives concentrated in 
those eyes, and the smile upon the lips of a love 
so pure that it asks no answering love from those 
it smiles upon. 

But the language of earth cannot describe the 
unearthly, nor could the understanding of man 
grasp in a moment those joys which the Beautiful 
Being revealed to me in that hour of supreme life. 
For the possibilities of existence have been wid- 
ened for me, the meanings of the soul have deep- 
ened. Those who behold the Beautiful Being are 
never the same again as they were before. They 
may forget for a time, and lose in the business 
of living the magic of that presence; but when- 



170 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

ever they do remember, they are caught up again 
on the wings of the former rapture. 

It may happen to one who is living upon the 
earth ; it may happen to one in the spaces between 
the stars; but the experience must be the same 
when it comes to all; for only to one in the state 
in which it dwells could the Beautiful Being reveal 
itself at all. 



A SONG OF THE BEAUTIFUL BEING 

When you hear a rustling in the air, listen again: there 
may be something there. 

When you feel a warmth mysterious and lovely in the 
heart, there may be something there, something 
sent to you from a warm and lovely source. 

When a joy unknown fills your being, and your soul 
goes out, out . . . toward some loved mystery, you 
know not where, know that the mystery itself is 
reaching toward you with warm and loving, though 
invisible, arms. 

We who live in the invisible are not invisible to each 
other. 

There are tender colours here and exquisite forms, and 
the eye gloats on beauty never seen upon the earth. 



THE BEAUTIFUL BEING 1 7 1 

Oh, the joy of simple life to be, and to sing in your soul 
all day as the bird sings to its mate! 

For you are singing to your mate whenever your soul 
sings. 

Did you fancy it was only the spring-time that thrilled 
you and moved you to listen to the rustling of 
wings ? 

The spring-time of the heart is all time, and the autumn 
may never come. 

Listen! When the lark sings, he sings to you. When 
the waters sing, they sing to you. 

And as your heart rejoices, there is always another heart 
somewhere that responds; and the soul of the lis- 
tening heavens grows glad with the mother joy. 

I am glad to be here, I am glad to be there. There is 
beauty wherever I go. 

Can you guess the reason, children of earth? 

Come out and play with me in the daisy fields of space. 
I will wait for you at the corner where the four 
winds meet. 

You will not lose your way, if you follow the gleam at 
the end of the garden of hope. 



172 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

There is music also beyond the roar of the earth as it 
swishes through space: 

There is music in keys unknown to the duller ears of 
the earth, and harmonies whose chords are souls 
attuned to each other. 

Listen. . . . Do you hear them? 

Oh, the ears are made for hearing, and the eyes are 
made for seeing, and the heart is made for loving! 

The hours go by and leave no mark, and the years are 
as sylphs that dance on the air and leave no foot- 
prints, and the centuries march solemn and slow. 

But we smile, for joy is also in the solemn tread of the 
centuries. 

Joy, joy everywhere. It is for you and for me, and for 
you as much as for me. 

Will you meet me out where the four winds meet? 



LETTER XXXVI 



THE HOLLOW SPHERE 



SOME time ago I started to write to you about 
certain visits which I had made to the infer- 
nal regions ; but I was called away, and the letter 
was not finished. To-night I will take up the 
story again. 

You must know that there are many hell's, and 
they are mostly of our own making. That is one 
of those platitudes which are based upon fait. 

Desiring one day to see the particular kind of 
hell to which a drunkard would be lively K ^ %q. I 
sought that part of the hollow sphere arcunct cr he 
world which corresponds to one of those coun- 
tries where drunkenness is most common. Souls, 
when they come out, usually remain in tile neigh- 
bourhood where they have lived, unless the T ^e is 
some strong reason to the contrary. ; / 

I had no difficulty in finding a hell full of ctrunk- 
ards. What do you fancy they were doing? Re- 
penting their sins ? Not at all. They were hover- 

i73 



174 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

ing around those places on earth where the fumes 
of alcohol, and the heavier fumes of those who 
over-indulge in alcohol, made sickening the at- 
mosphere. It is no wonder that sensitive people 
dislike the neighbourhood of drinking saloons. 

You would draw back with disgust and refuse 
to write for me should I tell you all that I saw. 
One or two instances will suffice. 

I placed myself in a sympathetic and neutral 
state, so that I could see into both worlds. 

A young man with restless eyes and a troubled 
face entered one of those u gin palaces" in which 
gilding and highly polished imitation mahogany 
tend to impress the miserable wayfarer with the 
idea that he is enjoying the luxury of the "king- 
doms of this world." The young man's clothes 
were threadbare, and his shoes had seen much 
W$ xr~ A stubble of beard was on his chin, for 
the price of a shave is the price of a drink, and 
a man takes that which he desires most — when he 
can gee It. 

He was leaning on the bar, drinking a glass of 
some sou-destroying compound. And close to 
him, taller than he and bending over him, with 
its repulsive, bloated, ghastly face pressed close 
to his, as if to smell his whisky-tainted breath, 
was one of the most horrible astral beings which 



THE HOLLOW SPHERE 175 

I have seen in this world since I came out. The 
hands of the creature (and I use that word to 
suggest its vitality) — the hands of the creature 
were clutching the young man's form, one long 
and naked arm was around his shoulders, the 
other around his hips. It was literally sucking 
the liquor-soaked life of its victim, absorbing him, 
using him, in the successful attempt to enjoy vi- 
cariously the passion which death had intensi- 
fied. 

But was that a creature in hell? you ask. Yes, 
for I could look into its mind and see its suffer- 
ings. For ever (the words "for ever" may be 
used of that which seems endless) this entity was 
doomed to crave and crave and never to be satis- 
fied. 

There was in it just enough left of the mind 
which had made it man — just enough to catch a 
fitful glimpse now and then of the horror of its 
own state. It had no desire to escape, but the 
very consciousness of the impossibility of escape 
was an added torment. And dread was in the 
eyes of the thing — dread of the future into which 
it could not look, but which it felt waiting to drag 
it into that state of even greater suffering than 
its present, when the astral particles of its form, 
unable longer to hold together because of the ab- 



I76 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

sence of the unifying soul, would begin to rend 
and tear what was left of the mind and astral 
nerves — rending and tearing asunder, in terror 
and pain, that shape whose end was at hand. 

For only the soul endures, and that which the 
soul deserts must perish and disintegrate. 

And the young man who leaned on the bar in 
that gilded palace of gin was filled with a name- 
less horror and sought to leave the place; but 
the arms of the thing that was now his master 
clutched him tighter and tighter, the sodden, va- 
porous cheek was pressed closer to his, the desire 
of the vampire creature aroused an answering de- 
sire in its victim, and the young man demanded 
another glass. 

Verily, earth and hell are neighbouring states, 
and the frontier has never been charted. 

I have seen hells of lust and hells of hatred; 
hells of untruthfulness, where every object which 
the wretched dweller tried to grasp turned into 
something else which was a denial of the thing 
desired, where truth was mocked eternally and 
nothing was real, but everything — changing and 
uncertain as untruthfulness — became its own an- 
tithesis. 

I have seen the anguished faces of those not 
yet resigned to lies, have seen their frantic ef- 



THE HOLLOW SPHERE 1 77 

forts to clutch reality, which melted in their grasp. 
For the habit of untruthfulness, when carried into 
this world of shifting shapes, surrounds the un- 
truthful person with ever-changing images which 
mock him and elude. 

Would he see the faces of his loved ones? The 
promise is given, and as the faces appear they 
turn into grinning furies. Would he grasp in 
memory the prizes of ambition? They are shown 
to be but disgrace in another form, and pride be- 
comes weak shame. Would he clasp the hand of 
friendship? The hand is extended — but in its 
clutch is a knife which pierces the vitals of the 
liar without destroying him, and the futile at- 
tempt begins again, over and over, until the un- 
easy conscience is exhausted. 

Beware of deathbed repentance and its after- 
harvest of morbid memories. It is better to go 
into eternity with one's karmic burdens bravely 
carried upon the back, rather than to slink 
through the back door of hell in the stockinged- 
feet of a sorry cowardice. 

If you have sinned, accept the fact with 
courage and resolve to sin no more; but he who 
dwells upon his sins in his last hour will live them 
over and over again in the state beyond the tomb. 

Every act is followed by its inevitable reaction; 



I78 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

every cause is accompanied by its own effect, 
which nothing — save the powerful dynamics of 
Will itself — can modify; and when Will modi- 
fies the effect of an antecedent cause, it is always 
by setting up a counteracting and more powerful 
cause than the first — a cause so strong that the 
other is irresistibly carried along with it, as a 
great flood can sweep a trickling stream of water 
from an open hose-pipe, carrying the hose-pipe 
cause and its trickling effect along with the rush- 
ing torrent of its own flood. 

If you recognise the fact that you have sinned, 
set up good actions more powerful than your sins, 
and reap the reward for those. 

There is much more to be said about hells, but 
this is enough for to-night. At another time I 
may return to the subject. 



LETTER XXXVII 

AN EMPTY CHINA CUP 

IT is no wonder that children, no matter how 
old and experienced their souls, have to be 
retaught in each life the relative values of all 
things according to the artificial standards of the 
world; for out here those values lose their mean- 
ing. 

That a soul had houses, lands, and honours 
among men does not increase his value in our 
eyes. We cannot hope to profit by his discarded 
riches. The soul in the "hereafter" builds its 
own house, and the materials thereof are free as 
air. If I use the house which another has built, 
I miss the enjoyment of creating my own. 

There is nothing worth stealing out here, so 
no one trembles for fear of burglars in the night. 
Even bores can be escaped by retiring to the very 
centre of oneself, for a bore is himself too self- 
centred ever to pierce to the centre of anyone else. 

On earth you value titles, inherited or acquired; 
179 



l80 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

here a man's name is not of much importance 
even to himself, and a visiting-card would be lost 
through the cracks in the floor of heaven. No 
footman angel would ever deliver it to his Lord 
and Master. 

One day I met a lady recently arrived. She 
had not been here long enough to have lost her 
assurance of superiority over ordinary men and 
angels. That morning I had on my best Roman 
toga, for I had been reliving the past; and the 
lady, mistaking me for Caesar or some other an- 
cient aristocrat, asked me to direct her to a place 
where gentlewomen congregated. 

I was forced to admit that I did not know of 
any such resort; but as the visitor seemed lonely 
and bewildered, I invited her to rest beside me 
for a time and to question me if she wished. 

"I have been here several months," I said, 
"and have gained considerable experience." 

It was plain to see that she was puzzled by 
my remark. She glanced at my classical garment, 
and I could feel her thinking that there was some- 
thing incongruous between it and my assertion 
that I had been here only a few months. 

"Perhaps you are an actor," she said. 

"We are all actors here," I replied. 

This seemed to puzzle her more than ever, 



AN EMPTY CHINA CUP l8l 

and she said that she did not understand. Poor 
lady! I felt sorry for her, and I tried my best 
to explain to her the conditions under which we 
live. 

"You must know in the first place," I said, "that 
this is the land of realised ideals. Now a man 
who has always desired to be a king can play the 
part up here if he wishes to, and no one will laugh 
at him; for each spirit has some favourite dream 
which he acts out to his own satisfaction. 

"We have, madam," I continued, "reacquired 
the tolerance and the courtesy of children who 
never ridicule one another's play." 

"Is heaven merely a play-room?" she asked, in 
a shocked tone. 

"Not at all," I answered; "but you are not in 
heaven." 

Her look of apprehension caused me immedi- 
ately to add: 

"Nor are you in hell, either. What was your 
religion upon the earth?" 

"Why, I professed the usual religion of my 
country and station; but I never gave it much 
thought." 

"Perhaps the idea of purgatory is not unfa- 
miliar to you." 



1 82 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"I am not a papist," she said, with some 
warmth. 

"Nevertheless, a papist in your position would 
conceive himself to be in purgatory." 

"I am certainly not happy," she admitted, "be- 
cause everything is so strange." 

"Have you no friends here?" I inquired. 

"I must have many acquaintances," she said; 
"but I never cared for intimate friendships. I 
used to entertain a good deal; my husband's po- 
litical position demanded it." 

"Perhaps there is someone on this side to whom 
you were specially kind at some time or other, 
someone whose grief you helped to bear, whose 
poverty you eased." 

"I patronised our organised charities." 

"I fear that sort of help is too impersonal to be 
remembered here. Have you no children?" 

"No." 

"No brothers or sisters on this side?" 

"I quarrelled with my only brother for marry- 
ing beneath him." 

"But surely," I said, "you must have had a 
mother. Was she not waiting for you when you 
came over?" 

"No." 

This surprised me, for I had been told that all 



AN EMPTY CHINA CUP 1 83 

mother spirits who have not gone back to the 
world know by a peculiar thrill when a child to 
which they have given birth is about to be reborn 
into the spiritual world — a sort of sympathetic 
after-pain, the final and sweetest reward of 
motherhood. 

"Then she must have reincarnated," I said. 

"Do you hold to that pagan belief?" the lady 
inquired, with just a touch of superiority. "I 
thought that only queer people, Theosophists and 
such, believed in reincarnation." 

"I was always queer," I admitted. "But you 
know, of course, dear madam, that about three- 
quarters of the earth's inhabitants are familiar 
with that theory in some form or other." 

We continued our talk for a little time, and 
meanwhile I was puzzling my heart as to what I 
could do to help this poor lonely woman, for 
whom no one was waiting. I passed in mental 
review this and that ministering angel of my ac- 
quaintance, and wondered which of them would be 
considered most correct from the conventional 
earthly point of view. The noblest of them was 
usually at the side of some newly arrived unfor- 
tunate woman — to use a euphemism of that polite 
society which my latest protegee had frequented. 
The others were here, there, and everywhere, but 



184 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

generally with those souls who needed them most; 
while the need of my prsent companion was more 
real than urgent. If Lionel had been here, he 
might have entertained her for a while. 

I wished that I had cultivated the acquaintance 
of some of those ladies who crochet and gossip 
in this world as they crocheted and gossipped in 
yours. Do not be shocked. Did you fancy that 
a lifelong habit could be laid aside in a moment? 
As women on earth dream often of their knitting, 
so they do here. It is as easy to knit in this world 
as it is to dream in yours. 

Understand that the world in which I now live 
is no more essentially sacred than is the world 
in which you live, nor is it any more mysterious 
to those who dwell in it. To the serious soul 
all conditions are sacred — except those that are 
profane, and both are found out here as well as 
on the earth. 

But to return to the lonely woman. I was still 
wondering what I should do with her when, look- 
ing up, I saw the Teacher approaching. He had 
with him another woman, as like the first as 
one empty china cup is like another empty china 
cup. Then he and I went away and left the two 
together. 

"I did not know," I said to the Teacher, "that 



AN EMPTY CHINA CUP 1 85 

you troubled yourself with any souls but those of 
considerable development." 

He smiled: 

"It was your perplexity which I came to re- 
lieve, not that of those poor ladies." 

Then he began to talk to me about relative 
values. 

"In a sense," he said, "one soul is as much 
worth helping as another; in a deeper sense, per- 
haps it is not. Do not think that I am indifferent 
to the sufferings of the weakest ones because I 
give my time and attention to the strong. Like 
the ministering angels, I go where I am most 
needed. Only the strong ones can learn what I 
have to teach. The weak ones are the charges 
of the Messiahs and their followers. But, never- 
theless, between us and the Messiahs there is 
brotherhood and there is mutual understanding. 
Each works in his own field. The Messiahs help 
the many; we help the few. Their reward in love 
is greater than ours ; but we do not work for re- 
ward any more than they do. Each follows the 
law of his being. 

"To be loved by all men a teacher must be 
known to all men, and we reveal ourselves only 
to a few chosen ones. Why do we not go the way 
of the Messiahs? Because the balance must be 



1 86 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

maintained. For every great worker in the sight 
of men there is another worker out of sight. 
Which kind of teacher is of greater value? The 
question is out of order. The North and the 
South are interdependent, and there are two poles 
to every magnet." 



LETTER XXXVIII 

WHERE TIME IS NOT 

I THINK you now understand from what I 
have said that not all the souls who have 
passed the airy frontier are either in heaven or 
hell. Few reach an extreme, and most live out 
their allotted period here as they lived out their 
allotted period on earth, without realising either 
the possibilities or the significance of their con- 
dition. 

Wisdom is a tree of slow growth; the rings 
around its trunk are earthly lives, and the grooves 
between are the periods between the lives. Who 
grieves that an acorn is slow in becoming an oak? 
It is equally unphilosophical to feel that the truth 
which I have endeavoured to make you under- 
stand — the truth of the soul's great leisure — is 
necessarily sad. If a man were to become an 
archangel in a few years' time, he would suffer 
terribly from growing-pains. The Law is im- 
placable, but it often seems to be kind. 

187 



1 88 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

Nevertheless there are many souls in heaven, 
and there are many heavens, of which I have 
seen a few. 

But do not fancy that most people go from 
place to place and from state to state as I do. 
The things which I describe to you are not excep- 
tional; but that one man should be able to see 
and describe so many things is exceptional indeed. 
I owe it largely to the Teacher. Without his 
guidance I could not have acquired so rich an 
experience. 

Yes, there are many heavens. Last night I felt 
the yearning for beauty which sometimes came 
to me on earth. One of the strangest phenomena 
of this ethereal world is the tremendous attrac- 
tion by sympathy — the attraction of events, I 
mean. Desire a thing intensely enough, and you 
are on the way to it. A body of a feather's 
weight moves swiftly when propelled by a free 
will. 

I felt a yearning for beauty, which is a syno- 
nym for heaven. Did I really move from my 
place, or did heaven come to me? I cannot say, 
space means so little here. For every vale with- 
out there is a vale within. We desire a place, 
and we are there. Perhaps the Teacher could 
give you a scientific explanation of this, but I can- 



WHERE TIME IS NOT 1 89 

not at the moment. And then, I want to tell you 
about that heaven where I was last night. It was 
so beautiful that the charm of it is over me still. 

I saw a double row of dark-topped trees, like 
cypresses, and at the end of this long avenue down 
which I passed was a softly diffused light. Some- 
where I have read of a heaven lighted by a thou- 
sand suns, but my heaven was not like that. The 
light as I approached it was softer than moon- 
light, though clearer. Perhaps the light of the 
sun would shine as softly if seen through many 
veils of alabaster. Yet this light seemed to come 
from nowhere. It simply was. 

As I approached I saw two beings walking 
towards me, hand in hand. There was such a 
look of happiness on their faces as one never sees 
on the faces of earth. Only a spirit unconscious 
of time could look like that. 

I should say that these two were man and 
woman, save that they seemed so different from 
what you understand by man and woman. They 
did not even look at each other as they walked; 
the touch of the hand seemed to make them so 
much one, that the realisation of the eye could 
have added nothing to their content. Like the 
light which came from nowhere, they simply were. 

A little farther on I saw a group of bright- 



I90 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

robed children dancing among flowers. Hand in 
hand in a ring they danced, and their garments, 
which were like the petals of flowers, moved with 
the rhythm of their dancing limbs. A great joy 
filled my heart. They, too, were unconscious of 
time, and might have been dancing there from 
eternity, for all I knew. But whether their glad- 
ness was of the moment or of the ages had no 
significance for me or for them. Like the light, 
and like the lovers who had passed me hand in 
hand, they were, and that was enough. 

I had left the avenue of cypresses and stood in 
a wide plain, encircled by a forest of blossoming 
trees. The odours of spring were on the air, and 
birds sang. In the centre of the plain a great 
circular fountain played with the waters, tossing 
them in the air, whence they descended in feathery 
spray. An atmosphere of inexpressible charm 
was over everything. Here and there in this cir- 
cular flower-scented heaven walked angelic beings, 
many or most of whom must some time have been 
human. Two by two they walked, or in groups, 
smiling to themselves or at one another. 

On earth you often use the word "peace" ; but 
compared with the peace of that place the great- 
est peace of earth is only turmoil. I realised 



WHERE TIME IS NOT I9I 

that I was in one of the fairest heavens, but that 
I was alone there. 

No sooner had this thought of solitude found 
lodgment in my heart than I saw standing be- 
fore me the Beautiful Being about whom I 
wrote you a little time ago. It smiled, and said to 
me: 

"He who is sadly conscious of his solitude is no 
longer in heaven. So I have come to hold you 
here yet a little while." 

"Is this the particular heaven where you 
dwell ?" I asked. 

"Oh, I dwell nowhere and everywhere/ ' the 
Beautiful Being answered. "I am one of the vol- 
untary wanderers, who find the charm of home 
in every heavenly or earthly place." 

"So you sometimes visit earth?" 

"Yes, even the remotest hells I go to, but I 
never stay there long. My purpose is to know 
all things, and yet to remain unattached." 

"And do you love the earth?" 

"The earth is one of my playgrounds. I sing 
to the children of earth sometimes; and when I 
sing to the poets, they believe that their muse is 
with them. Here is a song which I sang one night 
to a soul which dwells among men : 



192 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"My sister, I am often with you when you realise it not. 

For me a poet soul is a well of water in whose deeps I 
can see myself reflected. 

I live in a glamour of light and colour, which you mortal 
poets vainly try to express in magic words. 

I am in the sunset and in the star; I watched the moon 
grow old and you grow young. 

In childhood you sought for me in the swiftly moving 
cloud; in maturity you fancied you had caught me 
in the gleam of a lover's eye; but I am the eluder 
of men. 

I beckon and I fly, and the touch of my feet does not 
press down the heads of the blossoming daisies. 

You can find me and lose me again, for mortal cannot 
hold me. 

I am nearest to those who seek beauty — whether in 
thought or in form; I fly from those who seek to 
imprison me. 

You can come each day to the region where I dwell. 

Sometimes you will meet me, sometimes not; for my will 
is the wind's will, and I answer no beckoning fin- 
ger: 



WHERE TIME IS NOT 193 

But when I beckon, the souls come flying from the four 
corners of heaven. 



Your soul comes flying, too; for you are one of those I 
have called by the spell of my magic. 

I have use for you, and you have meaning for me; I like 
to see your soul in its hours of dream and ecstasy. 

Whenever one of my own dreams a dream of Paradise, 
the light grows brighter for me, to whom all things 
are bright. 

Oh, forget not the charm of the moment, forget not the 
lure of the mood ! 

For the mood is wiser than all the magi of earth, and 
the treasures of the moment are richer and rarer 
than the hoarded wealth of the ages. 

The moment is real, while the age is only a delusion, a 
memory, and a shadow. 

Be sure that each moment is all, and the moment is more 
than time. 

Time carries an hour-glass, and his step is slow; his hair 
is white with the rime of years, and his scythe is 
dull with unwearied mowing; 



194 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

But he never yet has caught the moment in its flight. 
He has grown old in casting nets for it. 

Ah, the magic of life and of the endless combination of 
living things ! 

I was young when the sun was formed, and I shall be 
young when the moon falls dead in the arms of her 
daughter the earth. 

Will you not be young with me? The dust is as noth- 
ing: the soul is all. 

Like a crescent moon on the surface of a lake of water 
is the moment of love's awakening; 

Like a faded flower in the lap of the tired world is the 
moment of love's death. 

But there is love and Love, and the love of the light for 
its radiance is the love of souls for each other. 

There is no death where the inner light shines, irradiat- 
ing the fields of the within — the beyond — the unat- 
tainable attainment. 

You know where to find me." 



LETTER XXXIX 

THE DOCTRINE OF DEATH 

MANY times during the months in which I 
have been here have I seen men and 
women lying in a state of unconsciousness more 
profound than the deepest sleep, their faces ex- 
pressionless and uninteresting. At first, before I 
understood the nature of their sleep, I tried as 
an experiment to awaken one or two of them, and 
was not successful. In certain cases where my 
curiosity was aroused, I have returned later, day 
after day, and found them still lying in the same 
lethargy. 

"Why," I asked myself, "should any man sleep 
like that — a sleep so deep that neither the spoken 
word nor the physical touch could arouse him?" 

One day when the Teacher was with me we 
passed one of those unconscious men whom I had 
seen before, had watched, and had striven unsuc- 
cessfully to arouse. 

i95 



I96 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"Who are these people who sleep like that?" 
I asked the Teacher; and he replied: 

"They are those who in their earth life denied 
the immortality of the soul after death." 

"How terrible!" I said. "And will they never 
awaken?" 

"Yes, perhaps centuries, perhaps ages hence, 
when the irresistible law of rhythm shall draw 
them out of their sleep into incarnation. For 
the law of rebirth is one with the law of 
rhythm." 

"Would it not be possible to awaken one of 
them, this man, for instance?" 

"You have attempted it, have you not?" the 
Teacher inquired, with a keen look into my face. 

"Yes," I admitted. 

"And you failed?" 

"Yes." 

We looked at each other for a moment, then 
I said: 

"Perhaps you, with your greater power and 
knowledge, could succeed where I have failed." 

He made no answer. His silence fired my inter- 
est still farther, and I said eagerly: 

"Will you not try? Will you not awaken this 
man?" 

"You know not what you ask," he replied. 



THE DOCTRINE OF DEATH 1 97 

"But tell me this," I demanded: "could you 
awaken him?" 

"Perhaps. But in order to counteract the law 
which holds him in sleep, the law of the spell he 
laid upon his own soul when he went out of life 
demanding unconsciousness and annihilation — in 
order to counteract that law, I should have to put 
in operation a law still stronger." 

"And that is?" I asked. 

"Will," he answered, "the potency of will." 

"Could you?" 

"As I said before — perhaps." 

"And will you?" 

"Again I say that you know not what you ask." 

"Will you please explain?" I persisted, "for 
indeed this seems to me to be one of the most 
marvellous things which I have seen." 

The face of the Teacher was very grave, as he 
answered: 

"What good has this man done in the past that 
I should place myself between him and the law of 
cause and effect which he has wilfully set in opera- 
tion?" 

"I do not know his past," I said. 

"Then," the Teacher demanded, "will you tell 
me your reason for asking me to do this thing?" 

"My reason?" 



I98 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"Yes. Is it pity for this man's unfortunate con- 
dition, or is it scientific curiosity on your part?" 

I should gladly have been able to say that it was 
pity for the man's sad state which moved me so; 
but one does not juggle with truth or with motives 
when speaking to such a Teacher, so I admitted 
that it was scientific curiosity. 

"In that case," he said, "I am justified in using 
him as a demonstration of the power of the 
trained will." 

"It will not harm him, will it?" 

"On the contrary. And though he may suffer 
shock, it will probably be the means of so impress- 
ing his mind that never again, even in future lives 
on earth, can he believe himself, or teach others 
to believe, that death ends everything. As far as 
he is concerned, he does not deserve that I should 
waste upon him so great an amount of energy as 
will be necessary to arouse him from this sleep, 
this spell which he laid upon himself ages ago. 
But if I awaken him, it will be for your sake, 'that 
you may believe.' " 

I wish I could describe the scene which took 
place, so that you could see it with the eyes of 
your imagination. There lay the man at our feet, 
his face colourless and expressionless, and above 
him towered the splendid form of the Teacher, 



THE DOCTRINE OF DEATH 1 99 

his face beautiful with power, his eyes brilliant 
with thought. 

"Can you not see," asked the Teacher, "a faint 
light surrounding this seemingly lifeless figure ?" 

u Yes, but the light is very faint indeed." 

"Nevertheless," said the Teacher, "that light 
is far less faint than is this weak soul's hold upon 
the eternal truth. But where you see only a pale 
light around the recumbent form, I see in that 
light many pictures of the soul's past. I see that 
he not only denied the immortality of the soul's 
consciousness, but that he taught his doctrine of 
death to other men and made them even as him- 
self. Truly he does not deserve that I should try 
to awaken him!" 

"Yety 'will do it?" 

"Yes, I will do it." 

I regret that I am not permitted to tell you by 
what form of words and by what acts my Teacher 
succeeded, after a mighty effort, in arousing that 
man from his self-imposed imitation of annihila- 
tion. I realised as never before — not only the 
personal power of the Teacher, but the irresistible 
power of a trained and directed will. 

I thought of that scene recorded in the New 
Testament, where Jesus said to the dead man in 
the tomb, "Lazarus, come forth!" 



200 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"The soul of man is immortal," declared the 
Teacher, looking fixedly into the shrinking eyes 
of the awakened man and holding them by his 
will. 

"The soul of man is immortal," he repeated. 
Then in a tone of command: 

"Stand up!" 

The man struggled to his feet. Though his 
body was light as a feather, as are all our bodies 
here, I could see that his slumbering energy was 
still almost too dormant to permit of that really 
slight exertion. 

"You live," declared the Teacher. "You have 
passed through death, and you live. Do not dare 
to deny that you live. You cannot deny it." 

"But I do not believe " began the man, his 

stubborn materialism still challenging the truth of 
his own existence, his memory surviving the or- 
deal through which he had passed. This last sur- 
prised me more than anything else. But after a 
moment's stupefaction I understood that it was 
the power of the Teacher's mental picture of the 
astral records round this soul which had forced 
those memories to awaken. 

"Sit down between us two," said the Teacher 
to the newly aroused man, "and let us reason to- 
gether. You thought yourself a great reasoner, 



THE DOCTRINE OF DEATH 201 

did you not, when you walked the earth as So-and- 
so?" 

"I did." 

"You see that you were mistaken in your 
reasoning," the Teacher went on, "for you cer- 
tainly passed through death, and you are now 
alive." 

"But where am I?" He looked about him in a 
bewildered way. "Where am I, and who are 
you?" 

"You are in eternity," replied the Teacher, 
"where you always have been and always will be." 

"And you?" 

"I am one who knows the workings of the 
Law." 

"What law?" 

"The law of rhythm, which drives the soul into 
and out of gross matter, as it drives the tides of 
the ocean into flood and ebb., and the conscious- 
ness of man into sleeping and waking." 

"And it was you who awakened me? Are you, 
then, this law of rhythm?" 

The Teacher smiled. 

"I am not the law," he said, "but I am bound 
by it, even as you, save as I am temporarily able 
to transcend it by my will — again, even as you." 

I caught my breath at the profundity of this 



202 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

simple answer, but the man seemed not to observe 
its significance. Even as he ! Why, this man by 
his misdirected will had been able temporarily to 
transcend the law of immortality, even as the 
Teacher by his wisely directed will transcended 
the mortal in himself! My soul sang within me 
at this glimpse of the godlike possibilities of the 
human mind. 

"How long have I been asleep?" demanded 
the man. 

"In what year did you die?" the Teacher asked. 

"In the year 1817." 

"And the present year is known, according to 
the Christian calendar, as the year 191 2. You 
have lain in a death-like sleep for ninety-five 
years." 

"And was it really you who awakened me?" 

"Yes." 

"Why did you do it?" 

"Because it suited my good pleasure," was the 
Teacher's rather stern reply. "It was not because 
you deserved to be awakened." 

"And how long would I have slept if you had 
not aroused me?" 

"I cannot say. Probably until those who had 
started even with you had left you far behind on 



THE DOCTRINE OF DEATH 203 

the road of evolving life. Perhaps for centuries, 
perhaps for ages." 

"You have taken a responsibility upon your- 
self," said the man. 

"You do not need to remind me of that," re- 
plied the Teacher. "I weighed in my own mind 
the full responsibility and decided to assume it 
for a purpose of my own. For will is free." 

"Yet you overpowered my will." 

"I did; but by my own more potent will, more 
potent because wisely directed and backed by a 
greater energy." 

"And what are you going to do with me?" 

"I am going to assume the responsibility of 
your training." 

"My training?" 

"Yes." 

"And you will make things easy for me?" 

"On the contrary, I shall make things very hard 
for you; but you cannot escape my teaching." 

"Shall you instruct me personally?" 

"Personally in the sense that I shall place you 
under the instruction of an advanced pupil of my 
own." 

"Who? This man here?" He pointed to me. 

"No. He is better occupied. I will take you 
to your teacher presently." 



204 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"And what will he show me?" 

"The panorama of immortality. And when 
you have learned the lesson so that you can never 
forget nor escape it, you will have to go back to 
the earth and teach it to others ; you will have to 
convert as many men to the truth of immortality 
as you have in the past deluded and misled by 
your false doctrines of materialism and death." 

"And what if I refuse? You have said that 
will is free." 

"Do you refuse?" 

"No, but what if I had?" 

"Then, instead of growing and developing 
under the law of action and reaction, which in 
the East they call karma, you would have been 



its victim." 



"I do not understand you." 

"He is indeed a wise man," said the Teacher, 
"who understands the law of karma, which is 
also the law of cause and effect. But come. I 
will now take you to your new instructor." 

Then, leaving me alone, the Teacher and his 
charge disappeared in the grey distance. 

I remained there a long time, pondering what I 
had seen and heard. 



LETTER XL 

THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY 

1AM about to say something which may shock 
certain persons; but those who are too fond 
of their own ideas, without being willing to grant 
others their ideas in turn, should not seek to open 
the jealously guarded doors which separate the 
land of the so-called living from the land of the 
certainly not dead. 

This is the statement which I have to make: 
that there are many gods, and that the One God 
is the sum-total of all of them. All gods exist 
in God. Do what you like with that statement, 
dear world, for truth is more vital than any- 
body's dream, even yours or mine. 

Have I seen God? I have seen Him who has 
been called the Son of God, and you may remem- 
ber that He said that whoever had seen the Son 
had seen the Father. 

But what of the other gods? you ask; for 
there are many in the world's pantheons. Well, 
the realities exist out here. 

205 



206 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

What! you say again, can man create the gods 
of his imagination and give them a place in the 
invisible ? No. They existed here first, and man 
became aware of them long ago through his own 
psychic and spiritual perception of them. Man 
did not create them, and the materialists who 
say that he did know little of the laws of being. 
Man, primitive man, perceived them through his 
own spiritual affinities with and nearness to them. 

When you have read folk-tales of this god and 
that, you have perhaps spoken patronisingly of 
the old myth-makers and thanked your lucky stars 
that you lived in a more enlightened age. But 
those old story-tellers were the really enlightened 
ones, for they saw into the other world and re- 
corded what they saw. 

Many of the world's favourite gods are said 
to have lived upon the earth as men. They have 
so lived. Does that idea startle you? 

How does a man become a god, and how does 
a god become a man? Have you ever wondered? 
A man becomes a god by developing god-con- 
sciousness, which is not the same as developing 
his own thought about God. During recent years 
you have heard and read much of so-called Mas- 
ters, men of superhuman attainments, who have 
forgone the small pleasures and recognitions 



THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY 207 

of the world in order to achieve something 
greater. 

Man's ideas of the gods change as the gods 
themselves change, for "everything is becoming, ,, 
as Heraclitus said about twenty-four centuries 
ago. Did you fancy that the gods stood still, 
and that only you progressed? In that case you 
might some day outstrip your god, and fall to 
worshipping yourself, having nothing to look up 
to as superior. 

Accompanied by the Teacher, I have stood face 
to face with some of the older gods. Had I come 
out here with a superior contempt for all gods 
save my own, I should hardly have been granted 
that privilege; for the gods are as exclusive as 
they are inclusive, and they only reveal themselves 
to those who can see them as they are. 

Does this open the door to polytheism, pan- 
theism, or other dreaded isms? An ism is only 
a word. Facts are. The day is past when men 
were burned at the stake for having had a vision 
of the wrong god. But even now I would hesi- 
tate to tell all that I have learned about the gods, 
though I can tell you much. 

Take, for instance, the god whom the Romans 
called Neptune. Did you fancy that he was only 
a poetic creation of the old myth-makers? He 



208 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

was something more than that. He was supposed 
to rule the ocean. Now, what could be more 
orderly and inevitable than that the work of con- 
trolling the elements and the floods should be as- 
sumed by, and the work parcelled out among, 
those able to perform it? We hear much of the 
laws of Nature. Who enforces them? The 
term "natural law" is in every man's mouth, but 
the Law has executors in heaven as on earth. 

I have been told that there are also planetary 
beings, planetary gods, though I have never had 
the honour of conscious communion with one of 
them. If a planetary being is so far beyond the 
daring of my approach, how should I comport 
myself in approaching the God of gods? 

paradoxical mind of man, which stands in 
awe and trembling before the servant, yet ap- 
proaches the master without fear! 

1 have been told that the guardian spirit of 
this planet Earth evolved himself into a god of 
tremendous power and responsibility in bygone 
cycles of existence. To him who has ever used 
a microscope the idea need not be appalling. The 
infinitely small and the infinitely great are the 
tail and the head of the Eternal Serpent. 

Who do you fancy will be the gods of the fu- 
ture cycles of existence? Will they not be those 



THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY 200. 

who in this cycle of planetary life have raised 
themselves above the mortal? Will they not be 
the strongest and most sublime among the pres- 
ent spirits of men? Even the gods must have 
their resting period, and those in office now would 
doubtless wish to be supplanted. 

To those men who are ambitious for growth, 
the doors of development are always open. 



LETTER XLI 

THE DARLING OF THE UNSEEN 

1HAVE written you before of one whom I 
call the Beautiful Being, one whose province 
seems to be the universe, whose chosen com- 
panions are all men and angelkind, whose play- 
things are days and ages. 

For some reason, the Beautiful Being has lately 
been so gracious as to take an interest in my ef- 
forts to acquire knowledge, and has shown me 
many things which otherwise I should never have 
seen. 

When a tour of the planet is personally con- 
ducted by an angel, the traveller is specially fa- 
voured. Letters of introduction to the great and 
powerful of earth are nothing compared with this 
introduction, for by its means I see into the souls 
of all beings, and my visits to their houses are 
not limited to the drawing-rooms. The Beautiful 
Being has access everywhere. 

210 



THE DARLING OF THE UNSEEN 211 

Did you ever fancy when you had had a lovely 
dream that maybe an angel had kissed you in 
your sleep? I have seen such things. 

Oh, do not be afraid of giving rein to your 
imagination! It is the wonderful things which 
are really true ; the commonplace things are nearly 
all false. When a great thought lifts you by the 
hair, do not cling hold of the solid earth. Let 
go. He whom an inspiration seizes might even 
— if he dared to trust his vision — behold the 
Beautiful Being face to face, as I have. When 
flying through the air one's sight is keen. If 
one goes fast and high enough, one may behold 
the inconceivable. 

The other night I was meditating on a flower- 
seed, for there is nothing so small that it may 
not contain a world. I was meditating on a 
flower-seed, and amusing myself by tracing its 
history, generation by generation, back to the 
dawn of time. I smile as I use that figure, "the 
dawn of time," for time has had so many dawns 
and so many sunsets, and still it is unwearied. 

I had traced the genealogy of the seed back 
to the time when the cave-man forgot his fight- 
ing in the strangely disturbing pleasure of smelling 
the fragrance of its parent flower, when I heard 
a low musical laugh in my left ear, and something 



212 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

as light as a butterfly's wing brushed my cheek 
on that side. 

I turned to look, and, quick as a flash, I heard 
the laughter in the other ear, while another but- 
terfly touch came on my right cheek. Then some- 
thing like a veil was blown across my eyes, and 
a clear voice said: 

"Guess who it is!" 

I was all a-thrill with the pleasure of this di- 
vine play, and I answered: 

"Perhaps you are the fairy that makes blind 
children dream of daisy fields." 

"However did you know me?" laughed the 
Beautiful Being, unwinding the veil from my eyes. 
"I am indeed that fairy. But you must have 
been peeping through cracks in the door when I 
touched the eyes of the blind babies." 

"I am always peeping through cracks in the 
door of the earth people's chamber," I replied. 

The Beautiful Being laughed again: 

"Will you come and have another peep with 
me this evening?" 

"With pleasure." 

"You could not do it with pain if I were by," 
was the response. 

And we started then and there upon the strang- 
est evening's round which I have ever made. 



THE DARLING OF THE UNSEEN 213 

We began by going to the house of a friend of 
mine and standing quietly in the room where he 
and his family were at supper. No one saw us 
but the cat, which began a loud purring and 
stretched itself with joy at our presence. Had I 
gone there alone, the cat might have been afraid 
of me; but who — even a cat — could fear the 
Beautiful Being? 

Suddenly one of the children — the youngest 
one — looked up from his supper of bread and 
milk, and said: 

"Father, why does milk taste good?" 

"I really do not know," admitted the author 
of his being, "perhaps because the cow enjoyed 
giving it." 

"That father might have been a poet," the 
Beautiful Being said to me; but no one overheard 
the remark. 

One of the other children complained of feel- 
ing sleepy, and put his head down on the edge 
of the table. The mother started to arouse him, 
but the Beautiful Being fluttered a mystifying veil 
before her eyes, and she could not do it. 

"Let him sleep if he wants to," she said. "I 
will put him to bed by and by." 

I could see in the brain of the child that he 



214 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

was dreaming already, and I knew that the Beau- 
tiful Being was weaving a fairy-tale on the web 
of his mind. After only a moment he started up, 
wide awake. 

"I dreamed," he said, "that [the writer 

of these letters] was standing over there and 
smiling at me as he used to smile, and with him 
was an angel. I never saw an angel before." 

"Come away," whispered the Beautiful Being 
to me. "From dreaming children nothing can be 
hidden." 

We then paid a visit to the future mother of 
my boy Lionel. Oh, mystery of maternity ! The 
eyes of the Beautiful Being were like stars as we 
gazed upon this other flower-seed, whose geneal- 
ogy goes even beyond the days of the cave-man 
— aye, back to the time of the fire-mist and the 
sons of the morning stars. 

"Come away!" said the Beautiful Being again. 
"To brides who dream of motherhood much also 
is revealed, and for this evening we remain un- 
known." 

We passed along the margin of a river which 
divides a busy town. Suddenly from a house by 
the river-bank we heard the tinkle of a guitar and 
a woman's sweet voice singing: 



THE DARLING OF THE UNSEEN 2I£ 

'When other lips and other hearts 

Their tale of love shall tell, . . . 

Then you'll remember — you'll remember me." 



The Beautiful Being touched my hand and 
whispered: 

"The life that is so sweet to these mortals is 
a book of enchantment for me." 

"Yet you have never tasted human life your- 
self ?" 

"On the contrary, I taste it every day; but I 
only taste it — and pass on. Should I consume it, 
I might not be able to pass on." 

"But do you never long so to consume it?" 

"Oh, but the thrill is in the taste! Digestion 
is a more or less tiresome process." 

"I fear you are a divine wanton," I said, af- 
fectionately. 

"Be careful," answered the Beautiful Being. 
"He who fears anything will lose me in the fog 
of his own fears." 

"You irresistible one!" I cried. "Who are 
you? What are you?" 

"Did you not say yourself a little while ago 
that I was the fairy who made blind babies dream 
of daisy fields?" 



2l6 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"I love you," I said, "with an incomprehensi- 
ble love." 

"All love is incomprehensible," the Beautiful 
Being answered. "But come, brother, let us climb 
the hill of vision. When you are out of breath, 
if you catch at my flying veil I will wait till you 
are rested." 

Strange things we saw that night. I should 
weary you if I told you all of them. 

We stood on the crater of an active volcano 
and watched the dance of the fire-spirits. Did you 
fancy that salamanders were only seen by unab- 
stemious poets? They are as real — to themselves 
and to those who see them — as are the omnibus- 
drivers in the streets of London. 

The real and the unreal! If I were writing 
an essay now, instead of the narrative of a travel- 
ler in a strange country, I should have much to 
say on the subject of the real and the unreal. 

The Beautiful Being has changed my ideas 
about the whole universe. I wonder if, when I 
come back to the earth again, I shall remember 
all the marvels I have seen. Perhaps, like most 
people, I shall have forgotten the details of my 
life before birth, and shall bring with me only 
vague yearnings after the inexpressible, and the 
deep unalterable conviction that there are more 



THE DARLING OF THE UNSEEN 217 

things in earth and heaven than are dreamed of 
in the philosophy of the world's people. Per- 
haps if I almost remember, but not quite, I shall 
be a poet in my next life. Worse things might 
happen to me. 

What an adventure it is, this launching of one's 
barque upon the sea of rebirth! 

But by my digressions one would say that I 
was in my second childhood. So I am — my sec- 
ond childhood in the so-called invisible. 

When, on my voyage that night with the Beauti- 
ful Being, 1 had feasted my eyes upon beauty until 
they were weary, my companion led me to scenes 
on the earth which, had I beheld them alone, 
would have made me very sad. But no one can 
be sad when the Beautiful Being is near. That 
is the charm of that marvellous entity: to be in 
its presence is to taste the joys of immortal life. 

We looked on at a midnight revel in what you 
on earth would call "a haunt of vice." Was I 
shocked and horrified? Not at all. I watched 
the antics of those human animalculae as a scien- 
tist might watch the motions of the smaller liv- 
ing creatures in a drop of water. It seemed to 
me that I saw it all from the viewpoint of the 
stars. I started to say from the viewpoint of 
God, to whom small and great are the same ; but 



21 8 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

perhaps the stellar simile is the truer one, for 
how can we judge of what God sees — unless we 
mean the god in us ? 

You who read what I have written, perhaps 
when you come out here you will have many sur- 
prises. The small things may seem larger and 
the large things smaller, and everything may take 
its proper place in the infinite plan, of which even 
your troubles and perplexities are parts, inevi- 
table and beautiful. 

That idea came to me as I wandered from 
heaven to earth, from beauty to ugliness, with 
my angelic companion. 

I wish I could explain the influence of the Beau- 
tiful Being. It is unlike anything else in the uni- 
verse. It is elusive as a moonbeam, yet more 
sympathetic than a mother. It is daintier than a 
rose, yet it looks upon ugly things with a smile. 
It is purer than the breath of the sea, yet it seems 
to have no horror of impurity. It is artless as a 
child, yet wiser than the ancient gods, a marvel 
of paradoxes, a celestial vagabond, the darling of 
the unseen. 



LETTER XLII 

A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT 

THE other day I met an acquaintance, a 
woman whom I had known for a number 
of years, and who came out about the time I did. 

Old acquaintances when they meet here greet 
each other about as they did on earth. Though 
we are, as a rule, less conventional than you, still 
we cling more or less to our former habits. 

I asked Mrs. how she was enjoying her- 
self, and she said that she was not having a very 
pleasant time. She found that everybody was 
interested in something else, and did not want to 
talk with her. 

This was the first time I had met with such a 
complaint, and I was struck by its peculiarity. I 
asked her to what cause she attributed this unso- 
ciability, and she replied that she did not know 
the cause, that it had puzzled her. 

"What do you talk to them about ?" I asked. 
219 



220 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"Why, I tell them my troubles, as one friend 
tells another; but they do not seem to be inter- 
ested. How selfish people are!" 

Poor soul ! She did not realise here, any more 
than she had on earth, that our troubles are not 
interesting to anybody but ourselves. 

"Suppose," I said, "that you unburden your- 
self to me. Tell me your troubles. I will prom- 
ise not to run away." 

"Why, I hardly know where to begin!" she 
answered. "I have found so many unpleasant 
things." 

"What, for instance?" 

"Why, horrid people. I remember that when 

I lived in I sometimes told myself that in 

the other world I would not be bothered with 
boarding-house landladies and their careless hired 
girls ; but they are just as bad here — even worse." 

"Do you mean to tell me that you live in a 
boarding-house here?" 

"Where should I live? You know that I am 
not rich." 

Of all the astonishing things I had heard in 
this land of changes, this was the most astonish- 
ing. A boarding-house in the "invisible" world! 
Surely, I told myself, my observations had been 
limited. Here was a new discovery. 



A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT 221 

"Is the table good in your boarding-house ?" 
I asked. 

"No, it is worse than at the last one." 

"Are the meals scanty?" 

"Yes, scanty and bad, especially the coffee." 

"Will you tell me," I said, my wonder grow- 
ing, "if you really eat three meals a day here, as 
you used to do on earth?" 

"How strangely you talk!" she answered, in 
a sharp tone. "I don't find very much difference 
between this place and the earth, as you call it, 
except that I am more uncomfortable here, be- 
cause everything is so flighty and uncertain." 

"Yes, go on." 

"I never know in the morning who will be sit- 
ting next me in the evening. They come and go." 

"And what do you eat?" 

"The same old things — meat and potatoes, and 
pies and puddings." 

"And you still eat these things?" 

"Why, yes; don't you?" 

I hardly knew how to reply. Had I told her 
what my life here really was, she would no more 
have understood than she would have understood 
two years ago, when we lived in the same city on 
earth, had I told her then what my real mental 
life was. So I said: 



222 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"I have not much appetite." 

She looked at me as if she distrusted me in 
some way, though why I could not say. 

"Are you still interested in philosophy?" she 
asked. 

"Yes. Perhaps that is why I don't get hungry 
very often." 

"You were always a strange man." 

"I suppose so. But tell me, Mrs. , do you 

never feel a desire to leave all this behind?" 

"To leave all what behind?" 

"Why, boarding-houses and uncongenial peo- 
ple, and meat and potatoes, and pies and pud- 
dings, and the shadows of material things in gen- 
eral." 

"What do you mean by 'the shadows of ma- 
terial things' ?" 

"I mean that these viands and pastries, which 
you eat and do not enjoy, are not real. They 
have no real existence." 

"Why!" she exclaimed, "have you become a 
Christian Scientist?" 

At this I laughed heartily. Was one who de- 
nied the reality of astral food in the astral world 
a Christian Scientist, because the Christian Sci- 
entists denied the reality of material food in the 
material world? The analogy tickled my fancy. 



A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT 223 

"Let me convert you to Christian Science, 
then," I said. 

"No, sir!" was her sharp response. "You 
never succeeded in convincing me that there was 
any truth in your various fads and philosophies. 
And now you tell me that the food I eat is not 
real." 

I puzzled for a moment, trying to find a way 
by which the actual facts of her condition could 
be brought home to the mind of this poor woman. 
Finally I hit upon the right track. 

"Do you realise," I said, "that you are only 
dreaming?" 

"What!" she snapped at me. 

"Yes, you are dreaming. All this is a dream — 
these boarding-houses, et cetera!* 

"If that is so, perhaps you would like to wake 
me up." 

"I certainly should. But you will have to 
awaken yourself, I fancy. Tell me, what were 
your ideas about the future life, before you came 
out here?" 

"What do you mean by out here?" 

"Why, before you died!" 

"But, man, I am not dead!" 

"Of course you are not dead. Nobody is dead. 



224 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

But you certainly understand that you have 
changed your condition." 

"Yes, I have noticed a change, and a change 
for the worse." 

"Don't you remember your last illness ?" 

"Yes." 

"And that you passed out?" 

"Yes, if you call it that." 

"You know that you have left your body?" 

She looked down at her form, which appeared 
as usual, even to its rusty black dress rather out 
of date. 

"But I still have my body," she said. 

"Then you have not missed the other one?" 

"No." 

"And you don't know where it is?" 

My amazement was growing deeper and 
deeper. Here was a phenomenon I had not met 
before. 

"I suppose," she said, "that they must have 
buried my body, if you say I left it; but this one 
is just the same to me." 

"Has it always seemed the same?" I asked, 
remembering my own experiences when I first 
came out, my difficulty in adjusting the amount 
of energy I used to the lightness of my new body. 

"Now you mention it," she said, "I do recall 



A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT 225 

having some trouble a year or two ago. I was 
quite confused for a long time. I think I must 
have been delirious." 

"Yes, doubtless you were/' I answered. "But 

tell me, Mrs. , have you no desire to visit 

heaven?" 

"Why, I always supposed that I should visit 
heaven when I died; but, as you see, I am not 
dead." 

"Still," I said, "I can take you to heaven now, 
perhaps, if you would like to go." 

"Are you joking?" 

"Not at all. Will you come?" 

"Are you certain that I can go there without 
dying?" 

"But I assure you there are no dead!* 

As we went slowly along, for I thought it best 
not to hurry her too swiftly from one condition 
to another, I drew a word-picture of the place 
we were about to visit — the orthodox Christian 
heaven. I described the happy and loving people 
who stood in the presence of their Saviour, in 
the soft radiance from the central Light. 

"Perhaps," I said, "some dwellers in that coun- 
try see the face of God Himself, as they expected 
to see it when they were on earth; as for myself, 



226 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

I saw only the Light, and afterwards the figure 
of the Christ." 

"I have often wished to see Christ," said my 
companion in an awe-struck voice. "Do you think 
that I can really see Him?" 

"I think so, if you believe strongly that you 
will." 

"And what were they doing in heaven when 
you were there?" she asked. 

"They were worshipping God, and they were 
happy." 

"I want to be happy," she said; "I have never 
been very happy." 

"The great thing in heaven," I advised, "is 
to love all the others. That is what makes them 
happy. If they loved the face of God only, it 
would not be quite heaven; for the joy of God 
is the joy of union." 

Thus, by subtle stages, I led her mind away 
from astral boarding-houses to the ideas of the 
orthodox spiritual world, which was probably the 
only spiritual world which she could understand. 

I spoke of the music — yes, church music, if you 
like to call it that. I created in her wandering 
and chaotic mind a fixed desire for sabbath joys 
and sabbath peace, and the communion of friends 
in heaven. But for this gradual preparation she 



A VICTIM OF THE NON-EXISTENT 22^ 

could not have adjusted herself to the conditions 
of that world. 

When we stood in the presence of those who 
worship God with song and praise, she seemed 
caught up on a wave of enthusiasm, to feel that 
at last she had come home. 

I wanted to take leave of her in such a way 
that she would not come out again to look for me; 
so I held out my hand in the old way and said 
good-bye, promising to come again and visit her 
there, and advising her to stay where she was. 
I think she will. Heaven has a strong hold on 
those who yield themselves to its beauty. 



LETTER XLIII 



A CLOUD OF WITNESSES 



ARE you surprised to learn that there is even 
a greater difference between the beings in 
this world than between the people of earth? 
That is inevitable, for this is a freer world than 
yours. 

I should fail in my duty if I did not tell you 
something of the evil beings out here; perhaps 
no one else will ever tell you, and the knowledge 
is necessary to self-protection. 

First I want to say that there is a strong sym- 
pathy between the spirits in this world and the 
spirits in your world. Yes, they are both spirits, 
the difference being mainly a difference in gar- 
ments, one wearing flesh and the other wearing 
a subtler but none the less real body. 

Now the good spirits, which may be "the spirits 
of just men made perfect," or those who merely 
aspire to perfection, are powerfully drawn to 
those fellow-spirits on earth whose ideals are in 

228 



A CLOUD OF WITNESSES 229 

harmony with their own. The magnetic attrac- 
tion which exists between human beings is weak 
compared with that which is possible between 
beings embodied and beings disembodied. As op- 
posites attract, the very difference in matter is a 
drawing force. The female is not more attrac- 
tive to the male than the being of flesh is attrac- 
tive to the being in the astral. The two do not 
usually understand each other, neither do man 
and woman. But the influence is felt, and beings 
out here understand its source better than you 
do, because they generally carry with them the 
memory of your world, while you have lost the 
memory of theirs. 

At no time is the sympathetic power between 
men and spirits so strong as when men are la- 
bouring under some intense emotion, be it love or 
hate, or anger, or any other excitement. For 
then the fiery element in man is most active, and 
spirits are attracted by fire. 

(Here the writing suddenly stopped, the influ- 
ence passed, to return after a few minutes.) 

You wonder why I went away? It was in or- 
der to draw a wide protective circle around us 
both, for what I have to say to you is something 



23O LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

which certain spirits would wish me to leave un- 
said. 

To continue. When man is excited, exalted, 
or in any way intensified in his emotional life, 
the spirits draw near to him. That is how con- 
ception is possible; that is the secret of inspira- 
tion; that is why anger grows with what it feeds 
upon. 

And this last is the point which I want to drive 
home to your consciousness. When you lose 
your temper you lose a great deal, among other 
things the control of yourself, and it is barely 
possible that another entity may momentarily as- 
sume control of you. 

This subjective world, as I have called it, is 
full of hateful spirits. They love to stir up strife, 
both here and on earth. They enjoy the excite- 
ment of anger in others, they are thrilled by the 
poison of hatred; as certain men revel in mor- 
phine, so they revel in all inharmonious passion. 

Do you see the point and the danger? A small 
seed of anger in your heart they feed and in- 
flame by the hatred in their own. It is not neces- 
sarily hatred of you as an individual, often they 
have no personal interest in you ; but for the pur- 
pose of gratifying their evil passion they will at- 



A CLOUD OF WITNESSES 23 1 

tach themselves to you temporarily. Other illus- 
trations are not far to seek. 

A man who has the habit of anger, even of 
fault-finding, is certain to be surrounded by evil 
spirits. I have seen a score of them around a 
man, thrilling him with their own malignant mag- 
netism, stirring him up again when by reaction 
he would have cooled down. 

Sometimes the impersonal interest in mere 
strife becomes personal; an angry spirit here may 
find that by attaching himself to a certain man 
he is sure to get every day a thrill or thrills of 
angry excitement, as his victim continually loses 
his temper and storms and rages. This is one 
of the most terrible misfortunes which can hap- 
pen to anybody. Carried to its ultimate, it may 
become obsession, and end in insanity. 

The same law applies to other unlovely pas- 
sions, those of lust and avarice. Beware of lust, 
beware of all sex attraction into which no spiritual 
or heart element enters. I have seen things that 
I would not wish to record, either through your 
hand or any other. 

Let us take instead a case of avarice. I have 
seen a miser counting over his gold, have seen 
the terrible eyes of the spirits which enjoyed the 
gold through him. For gold has a peculiar in- 



232 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

fluence as a metal, apart from its purchasing 
power or the associations attached to it. Certain 
spirits love gold, even as the miser loves it, and 
with the same acquisitive, astringent passion. 
As it is one of the heaviest of metals, so its power 
is a condensed and condensing power. 

I do not mean by this that you should beware 
of gold. Get all you can use, for it is useful; 
but do not gloat over it. One does not attract 
the avaricious spirits merely by owning the sym- 
bols of wealth — houses and lands and stocks and 
bonds, or even a moderate amount of coin; but 
I advise you not to hoard coins to gloat over. 

There are certain jewels, however, whose pos- 
session will aid you, for they attract the spirits 
of power. But you will probably choose your 
jewels by reason of your affinity with them, and 
may choose wisely. 

Now that I have done my duty by warning you 
against the passions and the passionate spirits of 
which you should beware, I can go on to speak 
of other feelings and of other spiritual associates 
of man. 

You have met persons who seemed to radiate 
sunshine, whose very presence in a room made 
you happier. Have you asked yourself why? The 
true answer would be that by their lovely dispo- 



A CLOUD OF WITNESSES 233 

sition they attracted round them a "cloud of wit- 
nesses" as to the joy and the beauty of life. 

I have myself often basked in the warm rays 
of a certain loving heart I know upon the earth. 
I have heard spirits say to one another as they 
crowded round that person, "It is good to be 
here." Do you think that any evil thing could 
happen to him? A score of loving and sympa- 
thetic spirits would strive to give him warning 
should any evil threaten. 

Then, too, a joyous heart attracts joyous 
events. 

Simplicity, also, and sweet humility, are very 
attractive to gentle disembodied souls. "Except 
ye be as little children, ye cannot enter in." 

Have you not often seen a child enjoying him- 
self with unseen playfellows? You would call 
them imaginary playfellows. Perhaps they were, 
perhaps they were not imaginary. To imagine 
may be to create, or it may be to attract things 
already created. 

I have seen the Beautiful Being itself, more 
than once, hovering in ecstasy above an earthly 
creature who was happy. 

A song of joy, when it comes from a thrilling 
heart, may attract a host of invisible beings who 



234 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

enjoy it with the singer; for, as I have told you, 
sound carries from one world to another. 

Never weep — unless you must, to restore lost 
equilibrium. The weeping spirits, however, are 
rather harmless because they are weak. Some- 
times a storm of tears, when it is past, clears the 
soul's atmosphere; but while the weeping is in 
progress, the atmosphere is thick with weeping 
spirits. One could almost hear the drip of their 
tears through the veil of ether — if the sobbing 
earthly one did not make so much noise with his 
grief. 

1 'Laugh and the world laughs with you," may 
be true enough; but when you weep, you do not 
weep alone. 



LETTER XLIV 



THE KINGDOM WITHIN 



THERE is one obscure point which I want 
to make clear, even though I may be ac- 
cused of "mysticism" by those to whom mysti- 
cism means only obscurity. 

I have said that the life of man is both sub- 
jective and objective, but principally objective; 
and that the life of "spirits" dwelling in subtle 
matter is both subjective and objective, but prin- 
cipally subjective. 

Yet I have spoken of going alone or with others 
to heaven, as a place. I want to explain this. 
You remember the saying, "The kingdom of 
heaven is within you," that is, subjective. Also, 
"Where two or three are gathered together in 
My name, there will I be in the midst of them." 

Now, those places in this subtle realm which I 
have called the Christian heavens are places 
where two or three, or two or three thousand, 
as the case may be, are gathered together in His 

235 



236 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

name, to enjoy the kingdom of heaven within 
them. 

The aggregation of souls is objective — that is, 
the souls exist in time and space ; the heaven which 
they enjoy is subjective, though they may all see 
the same thing at the same time, as, for instance, 
the vision of Him whom they adore as Redeemer. 

That is as clear as I can make it. 



LETTER XLV 

THE GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE 

ONE day I met a man in doublet and hose, 
who announced to me that he was Shake- 
speare. Now I have become accustomed to such 
announcements, and they do not surprise me as 
they did six or eight months ago. (Yes, I still 
keep account of your months, for a purpose of 
my own.) 

I asked this man what proof he could adduce 
of his extraordinary claim, and he answered that 
it needed no proof. 

"That will not go down with me," I said, "for 
I am an old lawyer." 

Thereupon he laughed, and asked: 
"Why did you not join in the game?" 
I am telling you this rather senseless story, be- 
cause it illustrates an interesting point in regard 
to our life here. 

In a former letter I wrote about my meeting 
with a newly arrived lady, who, finding me 

237 



238 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

dressed in a Roman toga, thought that I might 
be Csesar; and that I told her we were all actors 
here. I meant that, like children, we "dress up" 
when we want to impress our own imagination, or 
to relive some scene in the past. 

This playing of a part is usually quite innocent, 
though sometimes the very ease with which it is 
done brings with it the temptation to deception, 
especially in dealings with the earth people. 

You see the point I wish to make. The "lying 
spirits," of which the frequenters of seance rooms 
so often make complaint, are these astral actors, 
who may even come to take a certain pride in 
the cleverness of their art. 

Be not too sure that the spirit who claims to 
be your deceased grandfather is that estimable 
old man himself. He may be merely an actor 
playing a part, for his own entertainment and 
yours. 

How is one to tell, you ask? One cannot al- 
ways tell. I should say, however, that the surest 
test of all would be the deep and unemotional 
conviction that the veritable entity was in one's 
presence. There is an instinct in the human 
heart which will never deceive us, if we without 
fear or bias will yield ourselves to its decision. 
How often in worldly matters have we all acted 



THE GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE 239 

against this inner monitor, and been deceived and 
led astray! 

If you have an instinctive feeling that a cer- 
tain invisible — or even visible — entity is not what 
it claims to be, it is better to discontinue the con- 
ference. If it is the real person, and if he has 
anything vital to say, he will come again and 
again; for the so-called dead are often very de- 
sirous to communicate with the living. 

As a rule, though, the play-acting over here 
is innocent of intent to deceive. Most men desire 
occasionally to be something which they are not. 
The poor man who, for one evening, dresses 
himself in his best clothes and squanders a week's 
salary in playing" the millionaire is moved by the 
same impulse which inspired the man in my story 
to .assert that he was Shakespeare. The woman 
who always dresses beyond her means is playing 
the same little game with herself and with the 
world. 

All children know the game. They will tell 
you in a convinced tone that they are Napoleon 
Bonaparte, or George Washington, and they feel 
hurt if you scoff. 

Perhaps my friend with the Shakespearean as- 
piration was an amateur dramatist when he was 
on earth. Had he been a professional dramatist, 



240 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

he would probably have stated his real name, 
more or less unknown, and followed it by the 
declaration that he was the well-known So-and-so. 

There is much pride out here in the accom- 
plishments of the earth-life, especially among 
those who have recently come out. This lessens 
with time, and after one has been long here one's 
interests are likely to be more general. 

Men and women do not cease to be human 
merely by crossing the frontier of what you call 
the invisible world. In fact, the human charac- 
teristics are often exaggerated, because the re- 
straints are fewer. There are no penalties in- 
flicted by the community for the personating of 
one man by another. It is not taken seriously, for 
to the clearer sight of this world the disguise is 
too transparent. 



LETTER XLVI 



HEIRS OF HERMES 



THERE is much sound sense and not a little 
nonsense talked about Adepts and Mas- 
ters, who live and work on the astral plane. Now 
I am myself living, and sometimes working, on 
the so-called astral plane, and what I say about 
the plane is the result of experience and not of 
theory. 

I have met Adepts — yes, Masters here. One 
of them especially has taught me much, and has 
guided my footsteps from the first. 

Do not fear to believe in Masters. Masters 
are men raised to the highest power; and whether 
they are embodied or disembodied, they work on 
this plane of life. A Master can go in and out 
at will. 

No, I am not going to tell the world how they 
do it. Some who are not Masters might try the 
experiment, and not be able to go back again. 
Knowledge is power ; but there are certain powers 

241 



242 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

which may be dangerous if put in practice with- 
out a corresponding degree of wisdom. 

All human beings have in them the potentiality 
of mastership. That ought to be an encourage- 
ment to men and women who aspire to an inten- 
sity of life beyond that of the ordinary. But 
the attainment of mastership is a steady and gen- 
erally a slow growth. 

My Teacher here is a Master. 

There are teachers here who are not Masters, 
as there are teachers on earth who have not the 
rank of professor; but he who is willing to teach 
what he knows is on the right road. 

I do not mind saying that my Teacher ap- 
proves of my trying to tell the world something 
about the life which follows the change that is 
called death. If he disapproved, I should bow 
to his superior wisdom. 

No, it does not matter what his name is. I 
have referred to him simply as my Teacher, and 
have told you many things which he has said and 
done. Many other things I have not told you, 
for I can only come occasionally now. After a 
time I shall probably cease to come altogether. 
Not that I shall have lost interest in you; but 
it seems to be the plan that I shall get farther 
away from the world, to learn things which neces- 



HEIRS OF HERMES 243 

sitate for their comprehension a certain loosening 
of the earthly tie. Later I may return again, 
for the second time; but I make no promises. I 
will come if I can, and if it seems wise to come, 
and if you are in a mood to let me. 

I do not believe that I shall come through any- 
body else — at least, not to write letters like this. 
I should probably have to put such another person 
through the same training process that I put you 
through, and few — even of those who were my 
friends and associates — would trust me to that 
extent. So, even after I am gone, do not shut the 
door too tight, in case I should want to come 
again, for I might have something immensely im- 
portant to say. But on the other hand, please 
refrain from calling me; because if you should 
call me you might draw me away from important 
work or study somewhere else. I do not say for 
certain that you could, but it is possible ; and when 
I leave the neighbourhood of the earth of my 
own accord, I do not wish to be drawn back until 
I am ready to return. 

A person still upon the earth may call so in- 
tensely to a friend who has passed far away from 
the earth's atmosphere, that that soul will come 
back too soon in response to the eager cry. 

Do not forget the dead, unless they are strong 



244 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

enough to be happy without your remembrance; 
but do not lean too heavily upon them. 

The Masters, of whom I spoke a little while 
ago, can remain near or far away, as they will; 
they can respond or not respond: but the ordinary 
soul is very sensitive to the call of those it loved 
on earth. 

I have seen a mother respond eagerly to the 
tearful prayer of a child, and yet unable to make 
the lonely one realise her presence. Sometimes 
the mothers are very sad because they cannot 
make their presence felt. 

One time I saw my Teacher by his power help 
a mother to make herself seen and heard by a 
daughter who was in great trouble. The heart 
of my Teacher is very soft to the sufferings of 
the world; and though he says that he is not one 
of the Christs, yet he often seems to work as 
Christ works. At other times he is all mind. He 
illustrates the saying about the thrice-greatest 
Hermes Trismegistus — great in body, great in 
mind, great in heart. 

I wish I could tell you more about my 
Teacher, but he does not wish to be too well 
known on earth. He works for the work's sake, 
and not for reward or praise. 

He is very fond of children, and one day when 



HEIRS OF HERMES 245 

I was sitting unseen in the house of a friend of 
mine on earth, and the little son of the house fell 
down and hurt himself and wept bitterly, my great 
Teacher, whom I have seen command literally 
"legions of angels, " bent down in his tenuous 
form, which he was then wearing, and soothed 
and comforted the child. 

When I asked him about it afterwards, he said 
that he remembered many childhoods of his own, 
in other lands, and that he could still feel in mem- 
ory the sting of physical pain and the shock of a 
physical fall. 

He told me that children suffer more than their 
elders realise, that the bewilderment felt in grad- 
ually adjusting to a new and frail and growing 
body is often the cause of intense suffering. 

He said that the constant crying of some small 
babies is caused by their half-discouragement at 
the herculean task before them — the task of 
moulding a body through which their spirit can 
work. 

He told me a story of one of his former in- 
carnations, before he became a Master, and what 
a hard struggle he had to build a body. He could 
remember even the smallest details of that far- 
away life. One day his mother punished him for 
something which he had not really done, and when 



246 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

he denied the supposed wrongful act, she chided 
him for untruthfulness, not realising — good 
woman though she was — the essential truth of 
the soul to whom she had given form. He told 
me that from that childish impression, centuries 
ago, he could date his real battle against injus- 
tice, which had helped to develop him as a friend 
and teacher of mankind. 

Then he went on to speak of the importance 
of our recovering the memory of other lives, in 
order that we may see the roads by which our 
souls have come. 

As a rule, the great teachers are reticent about 
their own past, and they only refer to it when 
some point in their experience can be used to il- 
lustrate a principle, and thus help another to grasp 
the principle. It encourages a groping soul to 
know that one who has attained a great height 
has been through the same trials that now perplex 
him. 



LETTER XLVII 



ONLY A SONG 



WILL you listen to another song, or chant, 
or whatever you choose to call it, of that 
amazing angel whom we know as the Beautiful 
Being? 

Why do you fear to question me? I am the great an- 
swerer of questions; 

Though my answers are often symbols, yet words them- 
selves are only symbols. 

I have not visited you for a season, for when I am 
around, you can think of nothing else, and it is well 
that you should think of those who have trodden 
the path you are treading. 

You can pattern your ways on those of others, you can 
hardly pattern your ways on mine. 

I am a light in the darkness — my name you do not need 
to know; 

247 



248 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 
A name is a limitation, and I refuse to be limited. 

In the ancient days of the angels, I refused to enter the 
forms of my own creation, except to play with 
them. 

There is a hint for you, if you like hints. 

He who is held by his own creations becomes a slave. 
That is one of the differences between me and men. 

What earthly father can escape his children? What 
earthly mother wishes to? 

But I ! I can make a rose to bloom — then leave it for 
another to enjoy. 

My joy was in the making. It would be dull for me to 
stay with a rose until its petals fell. 

The artist who can forget his past creations may create 
greater and greater things. 

The joy is in the doing, not in the holding fast to that 
which is done. 

Oh, the magic of letting go ! It is the magic of the gods. 

There are races of men to whom I have revealed my- 
self. They worship me. 



ONLY A SONG 249 

You need not worship me, for I do not require worship. 

That would be to limit myself to my own creations, if I 
needed anything from the souls I have touched with 
my beauty. 

Oh, the magic of letting go ! 

The magic of holding on? 

Yes, there is a magic in holding on to a thing until it 
is finished and perfect; 

But when a thing is finished, whether it be a poem, a 
love, or a child, let it go. 

In that way you are free again and may begin another. 
It is the secret of eternal youth. 

Never look back with regret; look back only to learn 
what is behind you. 

Look forward always; it is only when a man ceases to 
look forward to things that he begins to grow old. 
He settles down. 

I have said to live in the moment; that is the same thing 
seen from another side. 

The present and the future are playfellows; we do not 
play when we study the past. 

I am the great playfellow of men. 



LETTER XLVIII 

INVISIBLE GIFTS AT YULETIDE 

IT is not yet too late to wish you a merry Christ- 
mas. 

How do I know that it is Christmas Day? 
Because I have been looking in at houses which 
I used to frequent, and have seen trees laden with 
tinsel and gifts. Do you wonder that I could see 
them? If so, you forget that we light our own 
place. When we know how to look, we can see 
behind the veil. 

This is my first Christmas Day on this side. 
I cannot send you a material gift which you could 
wear or hang up in your room; but I can send 
you the good wishes of the season. 

The mothers who have left young children be- 
hind them in the world know well when Christ- 
mas is approaching. Sometimes they bring in- 
visible gifts, which they have fashioned by their 
power of imagination and love out of the tenuous 
matter of this world. A certain grandmother all 

250 



INVISIBLE GIFTS AT YULETIDE 25 1 

last evening, Christmas Eve, was scattering flow- 
ers around her dear ones. Their fragrance must 
have penetrated the atmosphere of the earth. 

Did you ever smell suddenly a sweet perfume 
which you could not account for? If so, per- 
haps some one who loved you was scattering in- 
visible flowers. Love is stronger than death. 

Another whom you know will go out before 
long. Strengthen her with your faith. 

The practice of keeping Christmas is a good 
one, if you do not forget the real meaning of the 
day. To some it means the birth into the world 
of the spirit of humility and love ; but while love 
and humility had visited the world before the ap- 
pearance of Jesus of Nazareth, yet never before 
nor since have they come with greater power than 
they came to Judaea. Whether the stable in Beth- 
lehem was a physical reality or a symbol, makes 
no difference. 

I have been to the heavens of Christ, and know 
their beauty. "In My Father's house are many 
mansions." 

A traveller like me who wishes to go to some 
particular heaven must first feel in himself what 
those souls feel who enjoy that heaven; then he 
can enter and commune with them. He could 
never go as a mere sight-seer. That is why, as 



252 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

a rule, I have avoided the hells; but the heavens 
I often visit. 

And I have been in purgatory, the purgatory 
of the Roman Catholics. Do not scoff at those 
who have masses said for the repose of the souls 
of the departed. The souls are often conscious 
of such thoughtfulness. They hear the music, 
and they may smell the incense ; most of all, they 
feel the power of the thought directed to them. 
Purgatory is real, in the sense of being a real 
experience. If you want to call it a dream, you 
may; but dreams are sometimes terribly real. 

Even those who do not believe in purgatory 
sometimes wander awhile in sadness, until they 
have adjusted themselves to the new conditions 
under which they live. Should one tell them that 
they were in purgatory, they might deny the ex- 
istence of such a state; but they would readily 
admit their discomfort. 

The surest way to escape that painful period 
of transition is to go into the hereafter with a full 
faith in immortality, a full faith in the power of 
the soul to create its own conditions. 

Last night, after visiting various places upon 
the earth, I went to one of the highest Christian 
heavens. Perhaps I could not have gone so easily 
at any other time; for my heart was full of love 



INVISIBLE GIFTS AT YULETIDE 253 

for all men and my mind was full of the Christ 
idea. 

Often have I seen Him who is called the Sa- 
viour of men, and last night I saw Him in all His 
beauty. He, too, came down to the world for a 
time. 

I wonder if I can make you understand? The 
love of Christ is always present in the world, be- 
cause there are always hearts that keep it alight. 
If the idea of Christ as a redeemer should ever 
grow faint in the world, He would probably go 
back there and relight the flame in human hearts; 
but whatever the writers of statistics may say, that 
idea was never more real than at present. It 
may have been more talked about. 

The world is not in so bad a way as some 
people think. Be not surprised if there should 
be a strong renaissance of the spiritual idea. All 
things have their rhythms. 

Last night I stood in a great church where 
hundreds of Christians knelt in adoration of Je- 
sus. I have stood in churches on Christmas Eve 
when on earth as a man among men; but I saw 
things last night which I had never seen before. 
Surely where two or three are gathered together 
in the name of any prophet, there he is in the 



254 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

midst of them, if not always in his spiritual body, 
at least in the fragrance of his sympathy. 

The angels in the Christian heavens know when 
Christmas is being celebrated on earth. 

Jesus of Nazareth is a reality. As a spiritual 
body, as Jesus who dwelt in Galilee, He exists in 
space and time; as the Christ, the paradigm of 
the spiritual man, He exists in the hearts of all 
men and women who awaken that idea in them- 
selves. He is a light which is reflected in many 
pools. 

I wrote the other day about Adepts and Mas- 
ters. Jesus is a type of the greatest Master. He 
is revered in all the heavens. He grasped the 
Law and dared to live it, to exemplify it. And 
when He said, "The Father and I are one," He 
pointed the way by which other men may realise 
mastership in themselves. 

Humanity on its long road has evolved many 
Masters. Who then shall dare to question that 
humanity has justified itself? If one demands to 
know what purpose there is in life, tell him that 
it is this very evolution of the Master out of the 
man. Eternity is long. The goal is ahead for 
each unit of sufficient strength, and those who 
cannot lead can serve. 

This thought came home to me with special 



INVISIBLE GIFTS AT YULETIDE 255 

force last night. I am not so bold as to say that 
every unit in the great mass is strong enough, has 
energy enough, to evolve individual mastership; 
but there is no unit so weak that it may not have 
some part, however small, in the great work of 
evolving Masters out of men. It is sweet to 
serve. They too have their reward. 

The great mistake made by most minds in wres- 
tling with the problem of evolution is in not grasp- 
ing the fact that eternity is eternity, that to be 
immortal is to have no beginning or end. There 
is time enough in which to develop, if not in this 
life cycle, then in another which will follow; for 
rhythm is sure. 

If I could only make you grasp the idea of 
immortality as I see it! I did not fully under- 
stand it until I came out here and began to pick 
up the threads of my own past. My reason told 
me that I was immortal, but I did not know what 
immortality meant. I wonder if you do? 

I know an angel who has done more, perhaps, 
than many prophets have done to keep that idea 
alight in the world. Until I met the one whom 
we know as the Beautiful Being I had not revelled 
in the triumph of immortality. There is one who 
plays with immortality as a child plays with mar- 
bles. 



256 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

When the Beautiful Being says, "I am," you 
know that you are, too. When the Beautiful 
Being says, "I pluck the centuries as a child pulls 
the petals of a daisy, and I throw away the seed- 
bearing heart to grow more century-bearing dai- 
sies/' you feel — but words are weak to express 
what the Beautiful Being's joy in endless life can 
make one feel. 

You forget the thing of flesh and bones which 
you used to call yourself when this sliver of con- 
scious immortality exults in its own existence. 

When the Beautiful Being takes you for a walk 
in what it calls the "clover meadows of the sky," 
you are quite sure that you are one of the co- 
heirs of the whole eternal estate. 

The Beautiful Being knows well the Christ of 
the Christians. I think the Beautiful Being knows 
all the great Masters, embodied or disembodied. 
They all taught immortality in some form or 
other, if only in essence. 

The Beautiful Being went with me last night 
to the highest heaven of the Christians. Should 
I tell you all that I saw, you might be in too great 
a hurry to go out there and view it for yourself, 
and you must not leave the earth for a long time 
yet. You must realise immortality while still in 
the flesh, and make others realise it. 






\ 



INVISIBLE GIFTS AT YULETIDE 257 

I have told you about the minor heavens, where 
merely good people go; but the passionately de- 
vout lovers of God reach heights of contempla- 
tion and ecstasy which the words of the world's 
languages were not designed to describe. With 
the Beautiful Being at my side I felt those ec- 
stasies last night, while you were locked in sleep. 

Where shall I be next Christmas Eve? I shall 
be somewhere in the universe; for we could not 
get out of the universe if we should try. The 
universe could not get on without us ; it would be 
incomplete. Take that thought with you into 
the happy New Year. 



LETTER XLIX 

THE GREATER DREAMLAND 

I HAVE not been to see you for some time, 
for I have been trying an experiment. 

Since coming to this country I have so often 
seen men and women lying in a state of subjective 
enjoyment, of dream, if I may use the word, that 
I have long wanted to spend a few days alone with 
my interior self, in that same state. My reason 
for hesitating was that I feared to dream too 
long, and thus to lose valuable time — both yours 
and mine. 

But when I expressed to the Teacher one day 
my desire to visit the greater dreamland lying 
within my own brain, also my fear that I might 
be slow in waking, he promised that he would 
come and wake me in exactly seven days of earthly 
time if I had not already aroused myself. 

"For," he said, "you can set an alarm-clock 
in your own brain, which can always be relied 
upon." 

258 



THE GREATER DREAMLAND 259 

This I knew from old experience; but I had 
feared that the psychic sleep might be deeper 
than the ordinary earthly sleep, and that the 
alarm-clock might not go off at the appointed 
time. 

I have heard much comment, so doubtless have 
you, on the fact that spirits, when they return 
to communicate with their friends, say, as a rule, 
so little about their celestial life. The reason is, 
I fancy, that they despair of making themselves 
understood should they attempt to describe their 
existence, which is so different from that of earth. 

Now, most souls, when they have been out 
some time, fall into that state of reverie, or 
dream, which I had so long desired to experience 
for myself. Some souls awake at intervals, and 
show an occasional interest in the things and peo- 
ple of the earth; but if the sleep is deep, and if 
the soul is willing or desirous to leave the things 
of the earth behind, the subconscious state may 
last uninterruptedly for years, or even centuries. 
But a soul that could stay asleep for centuries 
would probably be one that was living according 
to long rhythm, the normal rhythm of humanity. 

So, when I went into the deep sleep, I went 
into it with a spell upon myself not to remain too 
long. 



260 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

Oh, it was wonderful, that dream-country in 
my own self! The Theosophists would perhaps 
say that I had taken a rest in the bliss of deva- 
chan. No matter what one calls it. It was an 
experience worth remembering. 

I closed my eyes and went in — in — deeper than 
thought, where the restless waves of life are still, 
and the soul is face to face with itself and with 
all the wonders of its own past. There is noth- 
ing but loveliness in that sleep. If one can bring 
back the dreams, as I did, the sojourn there is an 
adventure beyond comparison. 

I went in to enjoy, and I enjoyed. I found 
there the simulacrum of everyone whom I had 
ever loved. They smiled at me, and I understood 
the mystery of them, and why we had been drawn 
together. 

I refound, too, my old dreams of ambition, and 
enjoyed the fruit of all my labour on earth. It 
is a rosy world, that inner world of the soul, and 
the heart's desire is always found there. No 
wonder that the strenuous life of earth is oftener 
than not a pain and a travail, for the dream-life 
which follows is so beautiful that the balance must 
be preserved. 

Rest ! On earth you know not the meaning of 
the word. I rested only seven days; but so re- 



THE GREATER DREAMLAND 26 1 

freshed was I that, had I not other worlds to 
conquer, I should almost have had the courage 
to return to earth. 

Do not neglect rest — you who still live the toil- 
some life in the sunshine. For every added hour 
of true rest your working capacity is increased. 
Have no fear. You are not wasting time when 
you lie down and dream. As I have said before, 
eternity is long. There is room for rest in the 
wayside inns which dot the path which the cycles 
tread. 

If you want to take a long and devachanic rest 
— why, take it. Take it even on earth, if it seems 
desirable. Do not be always grubbing, even at 
literature. Go out and play with the squirrels, 
or lie by the fire and dream with the household 
cat. The cat that enjoys the drowsy fireside also 
enjoys catching mice when the mood is on her. 
She cannot be always hunting, neither can you. 

Just take a dip in devachan some day, and see 
how refreshed you will be when you come out. 
Perhaps I am misusing that word "devachan," 
for I was never very deeply learned in the lore 
of Theosophy. 

I have even heard nirvana described as a state 
of intense motion, so rapid that it seems motion- 
less, like a spinning-top, or the wing of a hum- 



262 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

ming-bird. But nirvana is not for all men — not 
yet. 

I have hinted at the wonders of my seven days 
of blissful rest, but I have not described them. 
How can I? A great poet once declared that 
there was no thought or feeling which could not 
be expressed in words. Perhaps he has changed 
his mind by this time, after being out here some 
sixty years. 

As I went to rest, I commanded my soul to 
bring back every dream. Of course I cannot say 
whether some may not have escaped, any more 
than you can say on waking that you have or 
have not forgotten the deeper experiences of the 
night. But when I came back into the normal 
life of this plane that is called astral, I felt like 
an explorer who returns from a strange journey 
with wonder-tales to tell. Only I did not tell 
them. To whom should I relate those dreams 
and visions? I would not be a bore, even to "dis- 
embodied" associates. Had Lionel been here, I 
might have entertained him many an hour with 
my stories ; but he is lost to me for the present. 

And, by the way, he seems to have taken little 
or no devachanic rest. Is that because he was so 
young on coming out that he had not exhausted 
the normal rhythm ? Probably. Had he remained 



THE GREATER DREAMLAND 263 

out here and grown up, perhaps he also would 
have sought the deeper interior world. But I 
will not speculate, for this is a record of experi- 
ences, not of speculations. You can speculate as 
well as I, if you think it worth while. 

I found in my own dreamland a fair, fair face, 
No, I am not going to tell you about that; it is 
my little secret. Of course I found many faces, 
but one was lovelier than all the others, and it 
was not the face of the Beautiful Being, either. 
The Beautiful Being I meet when I am wide 
awake. I did not encounter her as an actual pres- 
ence in sleep, only the simulacrum of her. In 
the deeper dreamland we see only what is in our 
brains. Things do not exist there, only the mem- 
ories of things and the imagination of them. 

Imagination creates in this world, as in yours: 
it actually moulds the tenuous substance; but in 
the greater dreamland I do not think that we 
mould in substance. It is a world of light and 
shadow pictures, too subtle to be described. 

Even before this experience I had gone into 
the memories of my own past; but I had not rev- 
elled in them, had not indulged myself to the ex- 
tent of conjuring with light and shade. But, oh ! 
what's the use? There are no words to describe 
it. Can you describe the perfume of a rose, as 



264 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

you once said yourself? Can you tell how a kiss 
feels? Could you even describe the emotion of 
fear so that one who had not felt it, by former 
experience in this life or some other, would know 
what you meant? No more can I describe the 
process of spiritual dreaming. 

Revel to your heart's content in fancy, in mem- 
ory, while you are still in the body, and yet I 
think that you will have only the shadow of a 
shadow of what I experienced in those seven days, 
the reflection of a reflection of the real dream. 
The reflection of a reflection ! I like that phrase. 
It suggests a clear picture, though not a direct 
impression. Try dreaming, then, even on earth, 
and maybe you will get a reflection of a reflection 
of the pictured joys of the spiritual dreamland. 



LETTER E 

A SERMON AND A PROMISE 

AS I have been coming to you every few days 
for several months, and have told stories 
for your amusement, may I come now and preach 
a sermon? I promise it shall not be long. 

You live in a land where church spires pierce 
the blue of heaven, looking from the viewpoint 
of the clouds like the uplifted spears of an invad- 
ing army — which in intent they are; so surely you 
have the habit of listening to sermons. The aver- 
age sermon is made up mostly of advice, and mine 
will not differ from others in that particular. I 
wish to advise you, and as many other persons 
as you can make listen to my advice. 

You will grant that, for one who offers counsel, 
I have had unusual opportunities for fitting myself 
to give it. In order to help you to live, I would 
show you the point of view of a serious and 
thoughtful — however imperfect — observer of the 

265 



266 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

after effects of causes set in motion by dwellers 
upon the earth. It has been said that cause and 
effect are opposite and equal. Very good. Now 
I want to draw your attention to certain illus- 
trations of that axiom which have come to my 
mind during the last few months. If I repeat 
one or two things which I have already said, that 
is no serious matter. You may have forgotten 
them, or missed their application to the business 
of preparing for the future life on this side of 
the gulf of death. That is a moss-grown figure 
of speech, "the gulf of death" ; but I am writing 
a sermon, not a poem, and well-worn tropes are 
expected from the pulpit. 

The preachers remind you every few Sundays 
that you have got to die some day. Do you re- 
alise it? Does your consciousness take in the fact 
that at any moment — to-morrow or fifty years 
hence — you may suddenly find yourself outside 
that body whose cohesive force you have become 
accustomed to ; that you may find yourself, either 
alone or accompanied, in a very tenuous and light 
and at first not easily manageable body, with no 
certain power of communicating with those 
friends and relations whom you may see in the 
very room with you? 

You have not realised it? Then get it through 



A SERMON AND A PROMISE 267 

your consciousness. Grasp it with both hemi- 
spheres of your brain. Clutch it with the talons 
of your mind. You are going to die. 

Oh, do not be alarmed! I do not mean you 
personally, nor that you, or any particular per- 
son, will die to-morrow, or next year ; but die you 
must some day; and if you remind yourself of 
it occasionally, it will lessen the shock of the ac- 
tual happening when it comes. 

Do not brood over the thought of death. God 
forbid that you should read such a morbid mean- 
ing into my blunt words ! But be prepared. You 
insure your life for so much money that your 
family may be provided for; but you do nothing 
to insure your own future peace of mind regarding 
your own self. 

Remember this always : however minute are the 
instructions you leave for the management of your 
affairs after death, should you be able to look 
back to the earth you will find that someone has 
mismanaged them. So expect just that, take it 
as a matter of course, and learn to say, "What 
difference does it make?" Learn to feel that 
the past is past, that the future alone has possi- 
bilities for you, and that the sooner you leave 
Other persons to manage your discarded earthly 
affairs the better it will be for your own tranquil- 



268 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

lity. Be prepared to let go. That is the first 
point I wish to make. 

Do not go out into the new life with only one 
eye open to the celestial planes, and the other in- 
verted towards the images of earth. You will 
not get far if you do. Let go. Get away from 
the world just as soon as you can. 

This may sound to some people like heartless 
advice, for there is no doubt that a wise spirit, 
looking down from the higher sphere, can, by his 
subtly instilled telepathic suggestions, influence for 
good the men and women of the earth. But there 
are always thousands of those who are eager to 
do that. The heavens above your head now are 
literally swarming with souls who long to take 
a hand in the business of earth, souls who cannot 
let go, who find the habit of managing other peo- 
ple's affairs a fascinating habit, as enthralling as 
that of tobacco, or opium. Again, do not call me 
heartless. I am blunt of speech, but I love you, 
men of earth. If I hurt you, it is for your good. 

Now comes another and a most interesting 
point. Forget, if you can, the sins you have com- 
mitted in the flesh. You cannot escape the effects 
of those causes ; but you can avoid strengthening 
the tie with sin, you can avoid going back to earth 



A SERMON AND A PROMISE 269 

self-hypnotised with the idea that you are a sin- 
ner. 

Do not brood over sin. It is true that you 
can exhaust the impulse to sin by dwelling on it 
until your soul is disgusted; but that is a slow 
and an unpleasant process. The short-cut of for- 
getfulness is better. 

Now I want to express an idea very difficult 
to express, for the reason that it will be quite 
new to most of you. It is this: The power of 
the creative imagination is stronger in men wear- 
ing their earthly bodies than it is in men (spirits) 
who have laid off their bodies. Not that most 
persons know how to use that power: they do not; 
the point I wish to make is that they can use it. A 
solid body is a resistive base, a powerful lever, 
from which the will can project those things con- 
jured by the imagination. That is, I believe, the 
real reason why Masters retain their physical 
bodies. The trained mind, robed in the tenuous 
matter of our world, is stronger than the un- 
trained mind robed in dense matter; but the Mas- 
ters still robed in flesh can command a legion of 
angels. 1 

*He has said that they build freely in that world through 
the creative imagination; but we must remember how tenuous 
and easily handled is the matter which they use.— Ed. 



270 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

This is by way of preface to the assertion that 
as you on earth picture your future life to be, so 
it will be, limited always by the power with which 
you back your will, and by the possibility of sub- 
tle matter to take the mould you give it, and that 
possibility is almost unlimited. 

Will to progress after death, and you will 
progress; will to learn, and you will learn; will 
to return to the earth after a time to take up a 
special work, and you will return and take up 
that work. 

Karma is an iron law, yes; but you are the crea- 
tor of karma. 

Above all things, do not expect — which is to 
demand — unconsciousness and annihilation. You 
cannot annihilate the unit of force which you are, 
but you can by self-suggestion put it to sleep for 
ages. Go out of life with the determination to 
retain consciousness, and you will retain it. 

When the time comes for you to enter that 
rest which a certain school of thought has called 
devachan, you will enter it; but that time will 
not be immediately after you go out. 

On finally reaching that state you will, as a 
matter of course, relive in dream your former 
earthly life and assimilate its experiences ; but by 
that time you will have got rid of the desire per- 



A SERMON AND A PROMISE 27 1 

sonally to take part, as a spirit, in the lives of 
those you have left behind. 

Do not, while still on earth, invoke the spirits 
of the dead. They may be busy elsewhere, and 
you may be strong enough to call them away 
from their own business to attend to yours un- 
willingly. 

You who write for me, I want to thank you 
for never calling me. You let me come always at 
my own time, and let me say what I wish to say 
without confusing my thought by either questions 
or comments. 

You of the earth who are still upon the earth 
may find your departed friends when you come 
out here, if they have not already put on another 
body. Meantime, let them perform the work of 
the state in which they are. 

You who write for me will remember that the 
first time I came you did not even know that I 
had left the earth. I found you in a passive mood, 
and wrote a message signed by a symbol whose 
special meaning was unknown to you, but which 
I knew would be immediately recognised by those 
in whom you were likely to confide. That was 
a most fortunate beginning, for it gave you con- 
fidence in the genuineness of my communications. 

But I said that I would write only a sermon to- 



272 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

night, so I will now pronounce the blessing and 
depart. I shall return, however. This is not 
the last meeting of the season. 

Later. 

One word more before I go to my other work. 

If you had urgently called me during that week 
which I spent in rest, you might have had the 
power to cut short a most interesting and valuable 
experience. So the final word, after the benedic- 
tion of this sermon, is : Do not be too egotistically 
insistent, even with the so-called dead. 

If your need is great, the souls who love you 
may feel it and come to you of their own accord. 
This is often illustrated in the earth life, among 
those whose psychic pores are open. 



LETTER LI 

THE APRIL OF THE WORLD 

HAVING told you last week that you must 
die, according to the jargon of the earth, 
I now want to assure you that you can never really 
die at all ; that you are as immortal as the angels, 
as immortal as God Himself. 

No, that is not a contradiction. 

I have spoken before of immortality: it was 
always a favourite theme of mine; but since my 
association with the Beautiful Being it has become 
for me an exultant consciousness. 

The Beautiful Being lives in eternity, as we 
fancy that we live in time. Will you write down 
here another of that angel's chants? 

When you see me in the green trees and in the green 
light under trees, know that you are near to me: 

When you hear my voice in the silence, know that I 
speak for you. 

273 



274 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

The immortal loves to speak to the immortal in the mor- 
tal, and there is joy in calling to the joy which 
dozes in the heart of a soul of earth. 



When joy is awake, the soul is awake. 

You look for God in the forms of men and women, and 
sometimes you find Him there; 

But you look for me in your own soul; the deeper the 
gaze, the fairer the vision. 

Yes, I am in Nature, and I am in you, when you look for 
me there; 

For Nature is dual, and the half you carry within you. 

All things are one and dual — even I, and that is why 
you may find me. 

Oh, the charm of being free, to wander at will round 
the earth and heaven, and through the souls of 
men! 



I am lighter than the thistle-down, but more enduring 
than the stars: 



The permanent is impalpable, and only the impalpable 
endures. 



THE APRIL OF THE WORLD 275 

The road is not long which leads to the castle of dreams ; 
the far-away is nearer than next-door, but only the 
dreamer finds it. 

When labour is light, the pay is sure; when the days 
are hard, their reward is tardy. 

Be glad, and I will repay you. 

I would write my name on the leaves of your heart, but 
only the angels can read the writing. 

Who bears my unknown name on the petals of his heart 
is accepted among the angels for the flower he is; 
his perfume reaches heaven. 

There is pollen in the heart, child of earth, and it fructi- 
fies the flowers of faith; 

There is faith in the soul, child of time, and it bears 
the seeds of all things. 

The seasons come and the seasons go, but the spring- 
time is eternal. 

I can find that in you which was lost in the April of the 
world. 



LETTER LII 



A HAPPY WIDOWER 



1MET a charming woman the other night, 
quite different from anyone else I have met 
heretofore. She was no less a woman because 
she weighed perhaps a milligramme instead of one 
hundred and thirty pounds. 

I was passing along a quiet road, and saw her 
standing by a fountain. Who had created the 
fountain? I cannot say. There are sculptors in 
this world who mould for the love of the work 
more beautiful fountains than your sculptors 
mould for money. The joy of the workman in 
his work! Why, that is heaven, is it not? 

I saw a beautiful woman standing by a foun- 
tain; and as I love beauty, whether in fountains 
or in women, I paused to regard both. 

The lovelier of the two looked up and laughed. 

"I was wishing for someone to talk to," she 
said. "What a wonderful world this is !" 

"I am glad you find it so," I answered. "I 
276 



A HAPPY WIDOWER 277 

also do not agree with the old woman who de- 
clared that heaven was a much overrated place." 

"You don't remember me, do you?" she asked. 

"No. Have we met before?" 

"We have. And, of course, you could remem- 
ber me, if you should try." 

Then I recalled who she was. We had met 
some years before on one of my journeys to New 
York, and I had talked with her about the mys- 
teries of life and death, of will and destiny. 

"I have tested many of the things you told 
me," she went on, "and I have found them true." 

"What things, for instance?" 

"First and most important, that man may cre- 
ate his own environment." 

"You can easily demonstrate that here," I said. 
"But how long have you been in this world?" 

"Only a few months." 

"And how did you come out?" 

"I died of too much joy." 

"That was a pleasant death and an unusual 
one," I said, smiling. "How did it happen?" 

"The doctor said that I died of heart-failure. 
For years I had wanted a certain thing, and when 
it came to me suddenly, the realisation was too 
much for me." 

"And then?" 



278 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

1 'Why, I suddenly realised that I had let slip 
the body through which I might have enjoyed this 
thing I had attained." 

"And then?" 

"I remembered that I was not my body, that 
I was my consciousness ; and as long as that was 
intact, I was intact. So I went right on enjoying 
the attainment." 

"Without a regret?" 

"Yes." 

"You are indeed a philosopher," I said. "And 
though I do not want to force your confidence, 
yet I would be much interested to know your 
story." 

"It would seem absurd to some people," she 
answered, "and even to me it seems strange some- 
times. But I had always wanted money, a great 
deal of money. One day a certain person died, 
leaving me a fortune. It was that joy which was 
too strong for me." 

"And how do you enjoy the fortune here?" 

"In several ways. My husband and I had 
planned a beautiful house — if we should ever have 
the money. We had planned to travel, too, and 
to see the interesting places of the world. We 
also had two or three friends who loved to cre- 
ate beauty in the arts, and who were hampered 



A HAPPY WIDOWER 279 

in their work by lack of means. Now, my hus- 
band, being my sole heir, came into the fortune 
immediately I passed out. So I enjoy everything 
with him and through him just the same as if I 
were actually in the flesh." 

"And he knows that you are present?" 

"Yes. We had each promised not to desert 
the other in life or death. I have kept my word, 
and he knows that I have kept it." 

"And where is he now?" 

"Travelling." 

"Alone?" 

"Except for me." 

"In what place is he?" 

"In Egypt at this time." 

I drew nearer. 

"Can you show him to me?" I asked. 

"Yes, I think so. Come along." 

It is needless to say that I did not require a sec- 
ond invitation. 

We found the man — a handsome fellow about 
thirty years of age — sitting alone in a luxurious 
bedroom in Cairo. It seems to be my destiny to 
have strange experiences in Cairo ! 

The young man was reading as we entered the 
room; but he looked up at once, for he felt that 
she was there. I do not think he perceived me. 



280 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

"My darling," he said, aloud, "I have seen the 
Pyramids !" 

She placed her hand upon his forehead, and 
he closed his eyes, the better to see her. 

Then his hand moved to the table, he opened 
his eyes again, and took up paper and pencil. I 
saw her guide his hand, which wrote: 

"I have brought a friend with me. Can you 
see him?" 

"No." 

The man spoke aloud, she communicating 
through the pencil in his hand and by his interior 
perception of her. 

"Then never mind," she wrote; "he is not an 
egotist. I only wanted him to see you. I have 
told him how happy I am — and now he sees why." 

"This journey of mine is an unalloyed delight," 
the man said. 

"That is because I am with you," she replied. 

"Were you with me at the Pyramids to-day?" 

"Yes, though I cannot see very well in the sun- 
shine. I have been there, however, and have seen 
them by moonlight. But where are you going 
from here?" 

"Where do you want me to go?" 

"Up the Nile, to Assouan." 

"I will go. When shall I start?" 



A HAPPY WIDOWER 28 1 

"The day after to-morrow. And now au re- 
voir, my love. I will return by and by." 

A moment later we were outside — she and I — 
in the soft starlight of an Egyptian evening. 

"Did I not tell you the truth?" she demanded, 
with a little laugh of triumph. 

"But have you no desire to go on in the spir- 
itual world?" I asked. 

"Is there anything more spiritual than love?" 
she asked in return. "Is not love the fulfilling of 
the Law?* 

"But," I said, "I recently wrote a letter to the 
men and women of the earth, advising those who 
should come out here to get away from the earth 
as soon as possible." 

"Lovers like me will not take your advice," she 
answered, with a smile. "And tell me now: Is 
it not better for Henry to enjoy my society in the 
long evenings— -is it not better for him to be 
happy than to grieve for me?" 

"But at first? Was he not inconsolable at your 
going out?" 

"Yes, until I came to him. He was sitting one 
night in deep dejection, and I reached for his 
hand, and wrote with it: 'I am here, Speak to 
me.' 'My Love!' he cried, his face alight, 'are 
you really there ?' 'Yes, I am here, and I shall 



282 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

come to you every day until you come out to me,* 
I answered, through the pencil. 

"He had never known that he was what you 
call a 'writing medium.' He would never have 
been but for my presence in a form of matter dif- 
ferent from his own. 

"Come now, my friend," she added, "would 
you really advise me not to visit Harry any 
more?" 

"There are said to be exceptions to all rules," I 
answered. "At this moment you seem to me to 
be one of those exceptions." 

"And will you add a postscript to your recent 
letter to the world?" 

"If I can," I said, "I will tell your story. My 
readers can draw their own conclusions." 

"Thank you," was her answer. 

"But," I added, "when Henry comes out here 
in his turn, you two together should go away from 
the world." 

"Have you been away from the world then?" 

"To some extent. I am only stopping here now 
until a certain work is finished." 

"And then where are you going?" 

"To visit other planets." 

"Henry and I will do that, too, when he comes 
out." 



A HAPPY WIDOWER 283? 

Now, my friend, I tell you this story for what- 
ever it is worth. There are cases like hers, where 
an earthly tie is all-compelling. But in the case of 
most persons I stand by my original assertion and 
my original advice. 



LETTER LIII 

THE ARCHIVES OF THE SOUL 

I HAVE spoken of a determination to visit 
other planets when my work of writing these 
letters is ended ; but I must not neglect to say that 
I consider such journeys to and fro in the universe 
of far less spiritual value than those other jour- 
neys which I have made and shall make into the 
deep places of my own self. Travelling in actual 
space and time is important to a man, that he 
may gain knowledge of other lands and peoples, 
see the differences between these peoples and him- 
self, and learn the causes thereof ; yet quiet medi- 
tation is even a greater factor in growth. If a 
man whose spiritual perceptions are open can do 
but one of these two things, it would be better for 
him to sit in a cabin in the backwoods and seek in 
his own soul for the secrets which it guards, than 
to travel without such self-examination to the 
ends of the earth. 

Get acquainted with your own soul. Know why 
284 



THE ARCHIVES OF THE SOUL 285 

you do this or that, why you feel this or that. Sit 
quietly when in doubt about any matter, and let 
the truth rise from the deeps of yourself. Ex- 
amine your motives always. Do not say, "I ought 
to do this act for such and such a reason; there- 
fore I do it for that reason." Such argument is 
self-deception. If you do a kind act, ask yourself 
why. Perhaps you can find even in a kind action 
a hidden motive of self-seeking. If you should 
find such a motive, do not deny it to yourself. Ac- 
knowledge it to yourself, though you need not 
advertise it on the walls of your dwelling. Such 
a secret understanding will give you a greater 
sympathy and comprehension in judging the mo- 
tives of others. 

Strive always for the ideal; but do not label 
every emotion as an ideal emotion if it is not 
really that. Speak the truth to yourself. Until 
you can dare to do that you will make little pro- 
gress in the quest of your own soul. 

Between earth lives is a good time to meditate, 
but one should form the habit of meditation while 
in the flesh. Habits formed in the flesh have a 
tendency to continue after the flesh is laid aside. 
That is a reason why one should keep as free as 
possible from physical habits. 

If my charming acquaintance who comes every 



286 LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

night to her husband to write love messages 
through his hand would spend the greater part of 
her time in acquiring knowledge of this new 
world, so that she could enlighten him, then might 
their communion be an unmixed good; but I fear 
it is not so. Therefore I shall look for her again, 
and give her some fatherly advice. She has a 
quick and receptive mind, and I think she will lis- 
ten to me. He would be interested in her experi- 
ences, if for no other reason than because they are 
hers. Yes, I shall have to find her again. 

I have made wonderful discoveries in the 
archives of my own soul. There I have found 
the memories of all my past, back to a time almost 
unbelievably distant. In seeing how the causes 
set up in one life have produced their effects in 
another life, I have learned more than I shall 
learn on my coming tour of the planets. 

Everything exists in the soul; all knowledge is 
there. Grasp that idea if you can. The infallible 
part of us is the hidden part, and it is for us to 
bring it to light. Do you understand now why I 
advise the disembodied to break away from the 
distractions and the dazzling mirages of the 
earthly life? Only in the stillness of detachment 
can the soul yield up her secrets. It is not that I 
am indifferent to earthly loves ; on the contrary, I 



THE ARCHIVES OF THE SOUL 287 

love more deeply than ever all those whom I 
loved on earth; but I realise that if I can love 
them wisely instead of unwisely, it will be better 
both for them and for me. 

Yet the call of the earth is loud sometimes, and 
my heart answers from this side of the veil. 



LETTER LIV 

A FORMULA FOR MASTERSHIP 

MY friend, I am going to leave you for a 
while — perhaps for a long time. 

It seems to me that my immediate work with 
the earth is done. I want still further to lighten 
my load, to soar out upon the waves of ether — 
far — far — and to forget, in the thrill of explora- 
tion, that I shall some day have to make my way 
painfully back to the world through the narrow 
straits of birth. 

I am going out with the Beautiful Being on a 
voyage of discovery. My companion has taken 
this journey before, and can show me the way to 
many wonders. 

There is a sadness in bidding you good-bye. Do 
you remember the last time you saw me in my old 
body? We neither of us thought that afternoon 
that we should next meet in a foreign country, and 
under conditions so strange that half the world 
will doubt that we have ever met again at all, and 
the other half will wonder if indeed we have 
really met. 

288 



A FORMULA FOR MASTERSHIP 289 

Tell me, was I ever more real to you than I am 
this evening? While sitting with me in the days 
of the past, did you ever know less of what I 
should say a moment afterwards than you know 
now? Rack your brain as you will, you cannot 
tell what I am going to talk about. That will 
prove to you, at least, that I am as real as ever. 

I want to leave a few messages. Tell .... 
And tell .... And some day tell my boy to 
live a brave and clean life. He will be watched 
over. Tell him that if sometimes he feels the in- 
terior guidance, not to be afraid to trust it. Tell 
him to look within for light. 

For the present, I have not much more to say 
to the world at large. But I want you to publish 
these letters, leaving out only the very personal 
paragraphs. 

Yes, I may not see you again for a long time. 
Do not be sad. When I am gone, perhaps an- 
other will come. 

Do not close the door too tight ; but guard well 
the door, and let no one enter who has not the 
signs and passwords. You will not be deceived; 
I have trained you to that end. 

I cannot write much to-night, for there is a sad- 
ness in leaving the earth. But I am — or shall be 
— all a-thrill with the interest of the coming voy^ 



29O LETTERS FROM A LIVING DEAD MAN 

age. Think of it! I shall see far-away planets 
and meet their inhabitants. Shall I find the 
"square-faced men" ? Perhaps so. 

In Jupiter, they say, there is a race of beings 
wonderful to behold. I shall see them. Will they 
be fairer than our own Beautiful Being, who loves 
the little earth and usually stays near it, because 
there are such struggles here? 

The joy of the struggle ! That is the keynote 
of immortality, the keynote of power. Let this 
be my final message to the world. Tell them to 
enjoy their struggles, to thrill at the endless possi- 
bilities of combination and creation, to live in the 
moment while preparing for long hence, and not 
to exaggerate the importance of momentary fail- 
ures and disappointments. 

When they come out here and get their lives in 
perspective, they will see that most of their causes 
of anxiety were trivial, and that all the lights and 
shadows were necessary to the picture. 

I had my lights and shadows, too, but I regret 
nothing. The Master enjoys difficulties as a 
swimmer enjoys the resistance of the water. 

If I could make you realise the power that 
comes from facing the struggle — not only bravely, 
as all the platitudinous bores will tell you, but 
facing it with enjoyment. Why, any healthy boy 



A FORMULA FOR MASTERSHIP 29 1 

enjoys a fight. His blood beats fast, his nerves 
tingle ; but he who keeps his head cool is likely to 
come out on top. 

Life is a fight. You are in matter to conquer 
it — lest it conquer you. 

There is nothing in this universe stronger than 
the will of man when it is directed by a powerful 
unit of force. Whatever your strength, make the 
most of it in the battle of life. 

Remember that your opponents are not other 
men, but conditions. If you fight men, they will 
fight you back; but if you fight conditions, they, 
being unintelligent, will yield to you with just 
enough resistance to keep your muscles in good 
order. 

And do not forget the law of rhythm — that is 
at the back of everything. Count on rhythm; it 
never has failed yet, and it never will. Watch 
for the high tides of yourself and flow up- with 
them; when the inevitable low tides come, either 
rest or meditate. You cannot escape rhythm. 
You transcend it by working with it. 

You can even turn and grow young, for time 
also has its tides; and there are many ripples in 
the long sea-swell of life. 

I feel that I am leaving much unsaid. But I 
shall meet you again some day. 






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